László Krasznahorkai

Hungarian writer, creator of film scenarios, one of the most important contemporary Hungarian writers, and laureate of the prestigious Kossuth Prize. Two of his novels have appeared in the Polish language: Satan’s Tango (1985, 2004) and Melancholy of Resistance (1989, 2007) and soon will be War and War, which is in the process of preparation now. The two first novels depict Hungary in the declining years of Goulash Communism, and War and War concerns a man searching and longing for harmony and peace in a world without time. Satan’s Tango and Melancholy of Resistance were both particularly popular in German-speaking countries. The heroes of the novels are marginalised people, the poor, outcasts, lost in their inability to adapt to the destructive machinery of the consumerist world, deprived of their freedom by the system and its destructive falsehoods. They are unable to find their place in the world, and run from themselves, or wait for a miracle. The reader loses himself in the labyrinth of sentences, some extending over several pages. His writing is can sometimes be compared to the work of the author of The Sinistra District, Adám Bodor. His newest work, featuring multiple plotlines, reflects his interest in cultures of the Far East, Buddhism, and the imperial legacy of China and Japan. This guest of 2. Joseph Conrad International Literature Festival took part in a meeting entitled The Melancholy of Resistance along with Mirosław Bałka – known in Poland as a sculptor whose works are focused on the subjects of the body, memory, and ephemerality.