"You might meet an angel while you're out shopping."

BarcelonaThe joy with which László Krasznahorkai (Gyula, 1954) received the news of the Nobel Prize in Literature last October, which was quickly tinged with anguish. "Suddenly, everyone wanted to talk to me: they congratulated me, asked for interviews, even though many of those journalists had never read me, and I even received a letter from the town where I was born inviting me to pay for a new wooden bridge they needed," he recalls in Barcelona, ​​months later. "All I wanted was to disappear," he insists. He couldn't make that dream a reality until January, shortly after delivering his Nobel lecture in Stockholm, in which, starting from the desire to address "hope," he ended up recounting a personal anecdote from the Berlin subway in the early 1990s: a homeless man appeared, struggling to urinate in a corner, and, unaware of his infraction, was chased after to stop him.

Krasznahorkai is perhaps the most Beckettian of contemporary authors. In novels like Satanic Tango (1985; in Catalan in Cráter, translated by Carles Dachs) and Baron Wenckheim returns home (2016; in Spanish published by Acantilado, translated by Adan Kovacsics) there is an explosive mix of apocalyptic atmospheres, poverty, and despair with a subtle sense of humor, camouflaged in the writer's often interminable sentences. It is not surprising, therefore, that unease gripped him when the Nobel Prize was announced, with more nuance, in any case, than when the jury notified Beckett in 1969: the Irish playwright and novelist called it a "catastrophe."

A difficult author?

“I write inside my brain all day long, and only occasionally do I put it on paper. I resist computers and technology, and I will continue to do so until the end of my days,” Krasznahorkai admits. “I can’t stop writing, but I don’t know if it’s worth publishing anything else. The world doesn’t need any more of my books.” The Nobel announcement came weeks before the writer published his latest book. A magyar nemzet biztonsága - Vadászat pillangóra, a title that in Catalan can be translated more or less like this: The security of the Hungarian nation - The butterfly hunt“It’s clear that the book’s subject matter has nothing to do with the first part of the title,” he jokes now.

Among the commitments he had to cancel back then was a visit to the CCCB to participate in a conversation with Miquel de Palol. He has been able to resume his encounter with Barcelona readers now, albeit in a different format: the dialogue is finally with his Spanish translator and friend, Adan Kovacsics. “This is Krasznahorkai’s first international public appearance, and I want to especially thank him for choosing Barcelona and the CCCB,” comments Judit Carrera, director of the institution. “If he made this decision, it’s because there’s a long-standing relationship between the city and the writer, which began in 2001, when Acantilado published Melancholy of resistance [1989], the first of the eight works he has published so far." The ninth will arrive in May, Herscht 07769 (2022), constructed as a single 400-page sentence.

"We must put aside the difficulty of Krasznahorkai's books," he asserts. Sandra Ollo—editor at Acantilado—. We must dare to enter into the experience of reading such an interesting work, so full of thought and humor, which immerses us in a unique and stimulating nebula. “Krasznahorkai has something that only geniuses know how to do, which is to make the transmission of such continuous ideas accessible or even easy—he will continue in Catalan—. Among all the virtues of his literature, I would highlight the empathy of his stream of thought, which springs forth incessantly and never stops.”

The Secret of the Apocalypse

At the press conference held at the CCCB this Wednesday at noon, the Hungarian writer wanted to recall his life in Hungary during the socialist era, the discovery of freedom –with nuances– in the Western world, and his friendship with the filmmaker Béla Tarr, with whom he worked on films such as Werckmeister harmonies and The Turin Horse"I spent the last weeks of Béla's life by his side, taking care of him as best I could, and when he died I placed my hand on his forehead to say goodbye," he recalls. "We had met in 1985, shortly before I published..." Satanic TangoHe had read a typed version I had given him, and he came running to my house to tell me what he thought. He started banging on the door like a madman for me to open it. It took me a while to get there, because I was fast asleep at the time."

As a young man, Krasznahorkai led a nomadic life, working a wide variety of jobs, until he discovered his literary vocation. "Back then I saw that radical revolution was the only way," he says now. "I believe we had to go against everything that humiliates us. I still think the worst of the human race, but I refuse to remain in that state of rage. Although we go through dark times, we always end up finding a way out." It was Susan Sontag who defined Krasznahorkai as the "master of the apocalypse." "I liked that he used the word apocalypseBut I find it exaggerated that he told me teacher “On the other hand,” he says, “it seems that I’m supposedly bringing about the apocalypse with my writing, and I have no intention of doing so.” The author of Satanic Tango He has reflected a great deal on this word over the years and has come to this conclusion: "The world doesn't end with the apocalypse. It's a continuous, perpetual dynamic. It involves falling and getting back up only to fall again. The apocalypse doesn't have to arrive; it's here right now, and it didn't start yesterday."

Until he left Hungary for the first time after turning 30, Krasznahorkai believed that his country, still under a socialist regime, was the world. "When I crossed the border between Hungary and Austria, I realized that neither the sky nor the grass in my country had any color," he recalls. "From that moment on, the West came to represent freedom, even if it wasn't as ideal as we had hoped." The author soon left Hungary for Germany, and since then has lived in several countries, always avoiding a permanent return to the place where he grew up. “My homeland seems horrible to me,” he says. “For a long time I believed I could strip that word of feeling, but for years now it has become a sticky, dirty thing.”

Krasznahorkai has felt like a “homeless” writer for decades. Imre KertészThe other Hungarian Nobel laureate in literature, as a Jew who was imprisoned in several Nazi concentration camps during World War II, had been left "without a future." "Elections are approaching in Hungary. Serious things will happen," he predicts, referring to the possible victory of the far-right Viktor Orbán. "If the government doesn't change, I would recommend that Hungarians flee the country."

For decades, the writer has found refuge from his many disappointments: a love for "quality art"—which has nothing to do "with the garbage made in Hollywood," he clarifies—and incessant writing, thanks to which he has published some fifteen books. "Angels always appear in my novels," he says. Satanic TangoThe angel is a girl. In Melancholy of resistancea postman. In War and war [1999], the archivist of a small town. There is a resemblance among them all, because they are helpless and always end up falling.” In his Nobel acceptance speech, angels also made an appearance: “Angels have died, but they resist disappearing,” he admitted at the CCCB. “You can meet an angel while you’re out shopping. The problem is that today’s angels no longer carry any messages, and you won’t have one for them either.”