Last week, the world watched as the Nobel Prizes—often seen as the highest honors in literature and peace—were awarded in a swirl of celebration, controversy, and political undercurrents. The 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature went to Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai, whose brooding, apocalyptic novels have long challenged and captivated readers. Meanwhile, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, a choice that ignited fierce debate about the meaning and merits of the prize in a world fraught with turmoil.
On October 14, 2025, the Swedish Academy announced Krasznahorkai as the year’s laureate in literature, lauding him for “his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.” According to Dawn, Krasznahorkai’s body of work includes nine novels, numerous collections of short fiction and essays, and several screenplays. Perhaps most famously, he co-wrote the epic seven-hour film adaptation of his debut novel, Satantango (1985), with director Béla Tarr.
Krasznahorkai’s writing is not for the faint of heart. His prose, often described as a “syntactical storm system,” is marked by marathon sentences that pull readers into a stylistic quicksand—one that’s oddly comforting, even as it explores the darkest corners of the human condition. His major tetralogy—Satantango, The Melancholy of Resistance (1989), War and War (1999), and Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming (2016)—is haunted by the specter of societal collapse. As Dawn puts it, “some dark wickedness is approaching” in these books, with ominous signs like public gatherings of anxious men, cryptic graffiti, the breakdown of services, and the rise of charismatic demagogues.
Many critics see in Krasznahorkai’s fiction a mirror of Eastern Europe’s tumultuous transition from communism to what one observer called “anarcho-capitalist-klepto-nihilism.” But his vision is broader, touching on the global drift toward far-right “strongman” politics. Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, is a recurring reference point in these discussions, with his brand of leadership compared to that of other controversial figures such as Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Javier Milei, and Benjamin Netanyahu. Ironically, Orbán himself publicly congratulated Krasznahorkai on his Nobel win—a gesture that some see as bitterly ironic, given the author’s critical stance toward the current political climate in Hungary and beyond.
Yet, as bleak as his vision can be, Krasznahorkai is no nihilist. He’s a self-professed traditionalist who believes that art remains humanity’s best defense against barbarism. In an interview earlier this year, he reflected, “Art is humanity’s extraordinary response to the sense of lostness that is our fate. Beauty exists. It lies beyond a boundary where we must constantly halt; we cannot go further to grasp or touch beauty—we can only gaze at it from this boundary and acknowledge that, yes, there is truly something out there in the distance. Beauty is a construction, a complex creation of hope and higher order.”
Krasznahorkai’s works are also notable for their celebration of artistic achievement across cultures and eras. In Seiobo There Below (2008), he pays homage to the paintings of Filipino Lippi and Giovanni Bellini, the Amida Buddha statue in Zengen-ji temple, the Acropolis, and the Noh masks of Ito Ryōsuke, among others. These treasures, he suggests, are bulwarks against the “landslide” of contemporary culture. His collaborations with Béla Tarr on three “slow cinema” films have further cemented his international reputation, while his dauntless English translators, George Szirtes and Ottilie Mulzet, have been instrumental in bringing his challenging prose to a wider audience.
Asked about his source of inspiration, Krasznahorkai was characteristically candid: “The bitterness. I am very sad if I think of the status of the world now. This is my deepest inspiration. This could be also an inspiration for the next generation or generations in literature. Inspiration to give something for the next generation, somehow to survive this time because these are very, very dark times and we need much more power in us to survive this time than before.”
While the Nobel in literature went to a pessimist whose work is suffused with existential dread, the Peace Prize took a sharply political turn. On October 10, 2025, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced Maria Corina Machado as the year’s laureate, sparking a firestorm of speculation and critique. As reported by Dawn, much of the pre-announcement chatter had focused on whether Donald Trump might receive the award, with supporters touting his claims of having “halted eight wars.” However, nominations for the prize had closed in January, rendering such speculation moot for this year.
Machado, a Venezuelan opposition leader, is a polarizing figure. She is a vocal supporter of Trump and Netanyahu, and is politically aligned with far-right leaders such as Javier Milei, Viktor Orbán, and Giorgia Meloni. Her record includes a staunch opposition to socialism and alleged complicity in the 2002 coup attempt against then-president Hugo Chavez. The Nobel citation described her as a “unifying figure” who has “spent years working for the freedom of the Venezuelan people,” but critics argue that this characterization glosses over her anti-democratic activities and controversial alliances.
The article in Dawn notes that the committee’s choice is hardly without precedent. Past controversial recipients include Henry Kissinger, whose 1973 award led satirist Tom Lehrer to declare that “satire was dead.” That year, Kissinger’s co-recipient, Le Duc Tho, declined the honor, citing the ongoing Vietnam War. In the case of Machado, the article questions whether she has truly “conferred the greatest benefit on mankind,” as stipulated by Alfred Nobel’s will.
Donald Trump, meanwhile, continues to bask in praise from allies like Benjamin Netanyahu and Shehbaz Sharif, who lauded him at high-profile events in Jerusalem and Sharm el-Sheikh. Trump’s so-called peace plan for the Middle East—criticized for excluding Palestinian self-determination and leaving Gaza largely under Israeli occupation—remains a point of contention. The devastation in Gaza is staggering, with tens of thousands of lives lost and rebuilding expected to take more than a decade. As Dawn observes, “there can never be any recompense for the tens of thousands of lives that have been lost.”
The article also casts doubt on the prospects for lasting peace in both Gaza and Venezuela, noting that the United States’ role as a sponsor of military action complicates any simple narrative of progress. Trump is already being floated as a potential contender for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, though the article suggests that others—such as Francesca Albanese, Greta Thunberg, or the World Central Kitchen—would be “infinitely more worthy.”
In a year when the Nobel Prizes have highlighted both the enduring power of art and the messy realities of political struggle, the world is left to ponder what these honors truly mean—and whether they are still capable of inspiring hope in dark times.
