The legendary work by the recipient of the 2015 Man Booker International Prize and a grand master of modern Hungarian literature.
László Krasznahorkai's novel, Satantango, has been published by Alma. Krasznahorkai is a writer often compared to literary giants such as Gogol and Melville, and is perennially mentioned as a strong candidate for the Nobel Prize. Satantango is his most widely known work, and in 1994, it was adapted into a film of the same name by Hungarian auteur director Béla Tarr, a master revered and loved by filmmakers worldwide, cementing its place as a masterpiece in film history.

Hungary in the 1980s, during the collapse of communism. Rumors begin to circulate among the villagers who remained in the dissolved collective farm, mired in poverty and distrust, leading powerless lives. Irimiás, believed to have died a year and a half ago, is said to be returning to the village. The news of his return, possessing overwhelming charisma, coinciding with the onset of the autumn rains, fills the villagers with sweet dreams of escaping their desperate lives, while at the same time, they are plagued by an unknown fear and unease. The sound of bells, heard without a bell, and invisible spiderwebs spun by unseen spiders, fuel the fear of the world's demise. Satantango depicts the process by which all attempts to break free from the cycle of a fallen life end in failure, eventually leading back to the treadmill, forming an eternal vicious circle, as a despairing apocalypse.

The publication of Satantango will not only be a significant relief for domestic readers who have yearned for Krasznahorkai's works but also bring immense shock and welcome to the cultural sphere as a whole.

The greatest living master of apocalyptic literature
And an artist's artist
László Krasznahorkai, who might be unfamiliar in Korea, is a novelist who represents modern Hungarian literature. Praised as a writer with inimitable talent and exceptional skill, he has garnered enthusiastic support from readers worldwide with works that encapsulate apocalyptic themes and sentiments in his uniquely strange and extraordinary style and form. Recognizing his original literary world and artistic merit, he has received various Hungarian national and international literary awards, becoming the recipient of the Man Booker International Prize in 2015. This was a year before Han Kang received the same award for The Vegetarian. Marina Warner, the chair of the judging panel at the time, commented, "Krasznahorkai is a visionary writer with an intense and unique vocal range. He creates scenes that are frightening, unfamiliar, and at the same time, chillingly funny."
Regarding the eschatological tendency often mentioned when describing his work, Krasznahorkai stated in his Man Booker acceptance speech, "Perhaps I am a writer for readers who seek beauty in hell." Susan Sontag also referred to Krasznahorkai as "the greatest living master of apocalyptic literature." Susan Sontag also caused a stir by praising the film Satantango, in which Krasznahorkai was involved as the original author, saying, "I will watch it at least once a year for the rest of my life." Krasznahorkai, who has long been the subject of praise from critics and artists, has continued to expand his unique worldview, as is well known, by participating in all of director Béla Tarr's previous works. In 2018, he was once again nominated for the Man Booker International Prize alongside Korean writer Han Kang.

"Even when you call to mind Claude Simon, Thomas Bernhard, José Saramago, W. G. Sebald, Roberto Bolaño, David Foster Wallace, Krasznahorkai would be the strangest writer." – The New Yorker
"A natural storyteller in the line of Kafka" – The Washington Post

A tango with the devil,
Six steps forward, six steps back,
Forming a tightly closed circle of eternity.
On an October morning, the day the first drops of what would be an endless autumn rain fell, Futaki awakens to the sound of bells. The bells, ringing in a place without a church or a bell, exude an ominous and supernatural atmosphere. It feels like a premonition of something about to happen. The ensuing series of farcical events, though seemingly comical, are in fact a sordid plot by some to embezzle the communal wages received for collective work at the collective farm and escape. The people left in the failed collective farm village distrust each other, and with their souls imbued to their very core by the already collapsed world, they desperately struggle to escape from it, even through despicable means, while powerless. Then, when rumors spread that the dead are returning to life, contrary to the ominous air carried by the news, the village begins to show an unusual vibrancy. Irimiás, believed to have died a year and a half ago, possesses a mysterious ability and absolute charisma, capable of building a castle out of cow dung if he so chooses. The despairing villagers, believing him to be the Messiah who will save them, abandon their plans to flee and await his return. They are ready to give anything for him, the one who will revitalize the village.
However, the novel, through the absurd drama of its opening, reminiscent of Kafka's novels, explicitly shows that Irimiás is by no means a savior. As they await him, the people, brimming with expectation and hope, finally unearth and reveal their desires that had been suppressed and hidden by poverty and anxiety. They become intoxicated by these desires and dance a tango, but what awaits them is not a rosy future, but a degradation into a vicious tool devised by a failed system, and the subsequent corruption of the world. The bells and spiderwebs that appear symbolically throughout the work are probably literary devices to show that the villagers are ultimately bound together and entangled. But like the bell that barely exists amidst the ruins, their community has already lost its meaning of existence from its very foundation. And just like spiderwebs that appear silently and cover everything no matter how much they are removed, an inescapable fate exists as a translucent ghost over their lives, simply singing of a descending world.
In this way, the author, as befits a master of bleak apocalyptic literature, captivatingly and ruthlessly depicted the process by which people floundering between despair and hope in an abandoned collective farm village in southeastern Hungary are brutalized by the system and ultimately trapped in a cycle of suffering. In particular, conforming to the "tango" steps – six steps forward and six steps back – which is also in the title of the work, Part 1 begins with Chapter 1 and concludes with Chapter 6, while Part 2 begins with Chapter 6 and concludes with Chapter 1 in reverse order, forming a circular, cyclical structure. Through formal experiments such as shifting the perspective of the characters in each chapter, the author wondrously portrayed the vicious cycle of suffering.
One notable external point about the work is that Satantango was published in 1985, before the dissolution of the communist bloc in Eastern Europe. Regarding this, Cho Won-gyu, the translator of Satantango and a poet, states in his commentary that the demise predicted by the author, who has a eschatological and apocalyptic artistic tendency, was probably an expression of political resistance. Nevertheless, he argues that what Satantango ultimately sought to portray was humanity in hope.

It is necessary to recall that Satantango was published in 1985, before the historical dissolution of the communist bloc in Eastern Europe. The 'demise' depicted by the author while the system was still in place must have been nothing short of an expression of political resistance. (...) This work can be said to have transcended mere criticism of a system of a particular era and remained as literature that embodies a more permanent theme: humanity in hope. (From 'Commentary')

In addition to Satantango, László Krasznahorkai's representative works include The Melancholy of Resistance (1989) and Seiobo There Below (2008). Alma plans to sequentially introduce his major works to the Korean audience.

[2025 Nobel Prize in Literature Winner] Sátántangó

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