Literature Nobel Laureate A Known Admirer Of Chinese Culture

The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded on Thursday (October 9 local time) to Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai. Known for exploring postmodern dystopia and melancholy, Krasznahorkai is also a longtime admirer of Chinese culture.

Translator Yu Zemin, who translates Krasznahorkai's works into Chinese, recalled that the author has visited China several times and written books on Chinese and Eastern culture, showing a particular fascination with ancient China and a fondness for China's legendary poet Li Bai, according to the Paper, a leading news media outlet based in Shanghai.

Yu said Krasznahorkai first visited China in 1991 as a journalist and returned in 1998, when Yu accompanied him on a trip retracing Li Bai's footsteps across 10 cities.

After his first visit, Krasznahorkai wrote a travel essay "The Prisoner of Urga". He also authored two books on Chinese and Eastern culture including "Destruction and Sorrow Beneath the Heavens".

Born in 1954 in the small town of Gyula in southeast Hungary, near the Romanian border, Krasznahorkai is widely regarded as Hungary's most important living author. His debut novel "Satantango", published in 1985, was a literary sensation in his homeland and the author's breakthrough work.

The Swedish Academy honored him "for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art".