STOCKHOLM\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Hungarian L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Krasznahorkai, who won the Nobel Prize in literature for his lyrical novels that combine a bleak worldview with mordant humor, gave a lecture in Stockholm on Sunday in one of his rare public appearances.<\/p>\n
The lecture was part of the Nobel week that is underway in Stockholm and Oslo with laureates holding news conferences and giving speeches before they are awarded the prestigious prizes. <\/p>\n
Krasznahorkai\u2019s lecture, which he gave in Hungarian, ranged across topics such as old and new angels, human dignity, hope or the lack thereof, rebellion and his observations of a clochard \u2014 or tramp \u2014 on the Berlin subway.<\/p>\n
He introduced his lecture, according to the English translation, by saying that \u201con receiving the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature, I originally wished to share my thought with you on the subject of hope, but as my stories of hope have definitely come to an end, I will now speak about angels.\u201d<\/p>\n
As opposed to \u201cthe angels of old,\u201d the new angels, Krasznahorkai said, \u201chave no wings, but they also have no message, none whatsoever. They are merely here among us in their simple street clothes, unrecognizable if they so wish.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey just stand there and look at us, they are searching for our gaze, and in this search there is a plea for us, to look into their eyes, so that we ourselves can transmit a message to them, only that unfortunately, we have no message to give,\u201d the author said. <\/p>\n
Expressing himself in his long, winding trademark sentences full of apocalypse and without full stops, he says it comes as a shock when he \u201cdetects the horrific story of these new angels that stand before me, the story that they are sacrifices, sacrifices: and not for us, but because of us, for every single one of us, because of every single one of us, angels without wings and angels without a message, and all the while knowing that there is war, war and only war, war in nature, war in society, and this war is being waged not only with weapons, not only with torture, not only with destruction: of course, this is one end of the scale, but this war proceeds at the opposite of the scale as well, because one single bad word is enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the Nobel judges announced the award for Krasznahorkai in October, they described the 71-year-old as \u201ca great epic writer\u201d whose work \u201cis characterized by absurdism and grotesque excess.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cKrasznahorkai\u2019s work can be seen as part of a Central European tradition,\u201d the Nobel Prize organization said. \u201dImportant features are pessimism and apocalypse, but also humor and unpredictability.\u201d<\/p>\n
His novels include \u201cSatantango,\u201d \u201cThe Melancholy of Resistance,\u201d \u201cWar and War,\u201d \u201cBaron Wenckheim\u2019s Homecoming\u201d and \u201cHerscht 07769,\u201d which are available in English. <\/p>\n
Last year\u2019s winner was South Korean author Han Kang. The 2023 winner was Norwegian writer Jon Fosse, whose work includes a seven-book epic made up of a single sentence.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, Kristian Harpviken, said Saturday that Venezuelan Peace Prize laureate and opposition leader Mar\u00eda Corina Machado will come to Oslo this week to receive her award in person. <\/p>\n
The 58-year-old, who won for her struggle to achieve a democratic transition in the South American nation, has been in hiding and has not been seen in public since January.<\/p>\n
Harpviken told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK that Machado was expected to personally pick up the prize Wednesday. <\/p>\n
\u201cI spoke with the Peace Prize winner last night, and she will come to Oslo,\u201d Harpviken said, according to NRK.<\/p>\n
The Nobel Prize award ceremonies will be held Wednesday on the anniversary of founder Alfred Nobel\u2019s death in 1896. The award ceremony for peace is in Oslo and the other ceremonies are in Stockholm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STOCKHOLM\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Hungarian L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Krasznahorkai, who won the Nobel Prize in literature for his lyrical novels that combine a bleak…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[6758,5178,48299,48300,48,52,51,47,50,49,4446,48297,150,40113,48296,48301,48298,3044,2664,218,1968],"class_list":["post-85829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-award","tag-hope","tag-krasznahorkai","tag-kristian-harpviken","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-message","tag-new-angel","tag-nobel-prize","tag-oslo","tag-rare-lecture","tag-scale","tag-stockholm","tag-story","tag-war","tag-winner","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}