Krasznahorkai thanks Pynchon..."beloved friend"

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László Krasznahorkai’s speech at the Nobel Prize banquet, 10 December 2025

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2025/krasznahorkai/speech/

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Excellences, Dear Laureates, Ladies
and Gentlemen, I wish to thank the Swedish Academy, and the Nobel
Foundation!

Thank you!

I thank all of my publishers and translators, I thank the building of the
Swedish Academy and the dear light falling into that room as the final
decision was being made in the awarding of this year’s Nobel Prize in
Literature,

And I give my thanks to Uncle Kerekes, sexton of the Gyula Romanian
Orthodox church and cobbler, who is no longer among the ranks of the
living, as the precise time of his death had come,

I give my thanks to my friend Jóska Pálnik, who told me, on the second
stair of the Water Slide Pool in 1960, how babies are made, and under the
grievous weight of this revelation I wanted to die,

I give my thanks to Franz Kafka, whose novel Der Schoss I read when I was
twelve years old so that I would be accepted in the circle of my brother,
six years older than me; and so my fate was sealed,

I give my thanks to the first thirty-one girls with whom I fell fatally in
love, but especially to Márti Klinkovics,

To Ernő Szabó and Imre Simonyi, unknown poets of Gyula, whom I have always
admired, and who bore my admiration in a manner worthy of a man,

To Péter Hajnóczy, the most staggering among Hungarian short story writers,
who succumbed in his struggle with his phantasms, and thus is no longer
among the ranks of the living,

I give my thanks to the artists of Classical Greece,

To the Italian Renaissance,

To Attila József, the Hungarian poet who showed the magical power of words,

To Fyodor Mihailovitch Dostoyevskij,

To my older brother, who often carried me home from kindergarten, because
of which I became infinitely grateful to him, as he showed me that there
could be another way of looking at the world, not just that which is given,

To William Faulkner,

To the city of Kyoto,

To Thomas Pynchon, beloved friend, to whom I owe deep gratitude,

To Johann Sebastian Bach, for the Divine,

To Patti Smith, for she is the eternal warning: never submit to anyone,

To the voices of Agnes Baltsa, Natalie Dessay, Jennifer Larmore, Monserrat
Caballe, Teresa Berganza and Emma Kirkby,

To Béla Tarr, who created colours by making them disappear, because in his
great films he tried to speak as the sinner who nevertheless, with all his
sins, must still be loved,

To Allen Ginsberg, the friend who is no longer among the ranks of the
living, because the time of his death had come,

To the literati of Imperial China,

To Max Seebald, the marvellous writer and friend who is no longer among the
ranks of the living, as he gazed for too long at one single blade of grass
in the meadow,

To the last wolf in Extremadura,

To nature, that was created,

To Prince Siddhartha,

To the Hungarian language,

To God.

Translated by Ottilie Mulzet

To cite this section
MLA style: László Krasznahorkai – Banquet speech. NobelPrize.org. Nobel
Prize Outreach 2025. Fri. 12 Dec 2025. <
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2025/krasznahorkai/speech/>