October 9th, 2025 — We’re thrilled to celebrate László Krasznahorkai (CRF 1998), who has been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature. Congratulations to this extraordinary author, the first Civitellian to receive the award.
The Swedish Academy, which organizes the prize, recognized Krasznahorkai “for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.”
Krasznahorkai, whose work includes War and War, Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming, Satantango and The Melancholy of Resistance, the latter two which have been adapted for the screen by the Hungarian movie director Bela Tarr as the seven hour opus Satantango and Werckmeister Harmonies, is celebrated for his sweeping sentences, his dark humor, and his profound explorations of chaos and transcendence. His prose has been described as both apocalyptic and redemptive—an unflinching look at the human condition that insists on the possibility of meaning.
During his 1998 residency at Civitella Ranieri, Krasznahorkai reflected on how the Umbrian landscape shaped his imagination. For the Civitella catalog that year, he wrote:
“One of the scenes of my novel The Melancholy of Resistance was coming back to me frequently while I was having my afternoon walks in the paradisiacal world of the avenue of trees at Civitella Ranieri and the shining sun of Umbria was setting above me. In this scene, which is played in a pub in South Hungary, the main character of the novel, a divine fool, the newspaper deliverer of the small town, uses the company of three drunk pub-crawlers, to symbolize the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth, to explain to the drunk audience what actually a solar eclipse is.”
The scene unfolds: “At first, so to speak… we hardly realize the extraordinary events to which we are witness…” he began, rather quietly, and hearing his whisper, everyone immediately stopped speaking, in anticipation of the storms of laughter to come. “The brilliant light of the Sun,” his broad gesture took in the driver who ground his teeth, struggling against the sea of troubles besetting him, and extended to the hypnotically circling figure of the house-painter, “floods Earth with warmth… and light.. .the side of Earth facing it, that is.”
Read the full excerpt on Krasznahorkai’s profile here.
It is moving to imagine this image—light, shadow, and cosmic alignment—returning to him under the same Umbrian sun that continues to illuminate the work of so many Civitellians.
Krasznahorkai’s Nobel win is a historic milestone for our community, and a reminder of how residencies like Civitella can nurture the quiet moments of reflection that precede great works of art.