Krasznahorkai: Apart from receiving the Nobel Prize, I have rarely experienced an honour such as this one

The Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA) celebrated writer László Krasznahorkai with the unveiling of a new stone in the monument entitled Unending Story, along with a reading, a film screening, a roundtable discussion, and a performance by the Korossy Quartet, according to MTI.

The monument titled “Unending Story,” located at the MTA’s headquarters on Széchenyi István Square is a continuously expanding timeline featuring limestone slabs representing the Academy’s first two hundred years, its major events, and its key figures. The new stone unveiled on Tuesday commemorates the Nobel Prize-winning author’s 1985 novel, Satantango.

In his congratulatory speech, Tamás Freund, the outgoing president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, drew parallels between the work of a scientist and that of a writer. In his view, it is the desire for understanding that perhaps most drives those who seek to discover the world as researchers or observe it as writers. “What observation – experiencing life's various situations—is for a writer, studying and conducting experiments that often seem futile and do not always yield new results is for a researcher,” he said. László Krasznahorkai’s writings were also brought to life by a need for understanding; his sentences, which often seem almost endless and multifaceted, are not merely stylistic feats but testimonies that also reflect the process of thought—Tamás Freund said in praise of the writer.

Győző Ferencz, executive president of the Széchenyi Academy of Literature and Arts, spoke about how, of all awards, the Nobel Prize in Literature tends to provoke the most vehement emotions, citing the mixed critical reception of Bob Dylan’s 2016 Nobel Prize as an example. “Yet there is always an underlying idea behind the awarding of the prize—let’s call it a progressive idea,” he noted. According to Ferencz, Krasznahorkai did not receive his Nobel Prize as a representative of a single country, a single people, or a single linguistic region, but rather for those magnificent novels, for that uniquely cohesive body of work which he created through many decades of concentrated intellectual labor.

At the event, held as part of the program celebrating the 200th General Assembly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, László Krasznahorkai delivered a reading to the assembly members, followed by a screening of an excerpt from Béla Tarr’s film Kárhozat, which was followed by a roundtable discussion.

“I must admit that, apart from receiving the Nobel Prize, I have rarely experienced an honour such as this one. Standing here in this building and experiencing this celebration is not so simple for the person who is being spoken of,” said Krasznahorkai, according to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ Instagram video, while also expressing his gratitude to the organizers. “Don’t believe a word when people say that my books are difficult to read,” the writer said at the end of his brief speech.