Acantilado Publishing, the great Spanish-language discoverer of the new Nobel Prize winner

▲ The entrance to the Swedish Academy before the announcement of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature. Photo by AFP

Armando G. Tejeda

Correspondent

La Jornada Newspaper, Friday, October 10, 2025, p. 4

Madrid. The Acantilado publishing house, a benchmark not only for its exquisite publications but also for its discerning selection of contemporary authors destined to become classics of world literature, celebrated the selection of Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai as the new Nobel Prize winner in Literature.

“The desolation, apocalypse, and absurdity that form the backdrop to his narrative world are not at odds with his work's search for beauty or his love of nature as a reflection of divinity,” explained the Barcelona-based publishing house, founded 26 years ago by the visionary Jaume Vallcorba Plana and currently directed by Sandra Ollo.

Many Spanish-speaking readers have discovered authors like Krasznahorkai thanks to the Acantilado imprint. Just looking at the traditional red and white cover is enough to trust that the book or author is at least interesting.

This is what happened to the new Nobel Prize winner for literature, relegated by the major European publishing houses, but almost immediately identified by Acantilado as a writer to be published. They have done so so far with seven of his novels and an anthology of short stories: Melancholy of Resistance (2001), To the North the Mountain, to the South the Lake, to the West the Road, to the East the River (2005), War and War (2009), Isaiah Has Arrived (2009), And Seiobo Descended to Earth (2015), Satanic Tango (2017), Merciful Relations (2023) and Baron Wenckheim Returns Home (2024).

The publisher explained that "Over the years, Krasznahorkai has created a unique literary body of work, and perhaps for this reason he has often been compared to other unique authors, such as Kafka—his literary hero—Gogol, Beckett, and Bernhard."

They add that "although Krasznahorkai has stated that writing is for him something as enigmatic as dancing in hell, his mysterious dance seems magical to us readers time and again." Therefore, "we are delighted to have made available to Spanish-language readers the always lucid and surprising work of this magnificent writer and great friend."

Although Krasznahorkai's first novel was Satanic Tango, published in his home country in 1985, Acantilado published it for the first time in 2017, following five other books by him. The Hungarian author's first title in Spanish was Melancholy of Resistance, which was also his second book to be published, in 1989. Last year, the publisher released Baron Wenckheim Returns Home, which also coincided with his winning the Formentor Prize for Literature. It tells the story of a Hungarian baron who, after spending much of his life in exile in Argentina, decides to return to his homeland in the hope of reuniting with his teenage love. But his return sows confusion in the town, where he is welcomed as a wealthy benefactor capable of saving them from doom, when in reality he has squandered his fortune in the casinos of Buenos Aires.

Highlights the translation work

Acantilado has not only succeeded in publishing Krasznahorkai's complex narratives, but also in preserving their linguistic richness and stylistic depth in translation, thanks to the work of Adán Kovacsics, who has maintained the essence and nuance of his prose to uphold the literary integrity of the original text.

With the awarding of the Formentor Prize in 2024, the members of the jury for this prestigious award wrote a statement that lucidly defines the work and figure of the new Nobel Prize winner in Literature. They stated that the recognition was granted "for sustaining the narrative power that envelops, reveals, conceals, and transforms the reality of the world; for expanding the novelistic version of enigmatic human existence; for summoning the vigorous reading of a complex fable and constructing the fascinating labyrinths of the literary imagination."

“Our award-winner's work encompasses in its elliptical and measured evocation the somber, beautiful, and melancholic landscapes of the soul, the abrupt cartography of the sinuous human pilgrimage, and the secret murmurs of a self-absorbed premonition.”

Merry Macmasters

La Jornada Newspaper, Friday, October 10, 2025, p. 4

Music has always played a central role in the life of Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai. He has even "improvised" on various instruments. A renowned "observer" of art, but not a "lover" of it, as he has said, the novelist is always willing to offer his opinions on topics related to sound art. For example, about his fellow countryman, the composer Gyorgy Kurtág (1926), born in Romania and naturalized Hungarian in 1948.

In a long interview with Spanish novelist Mauro Javier Cárdenas, published in 2013 in Music & Literature magazine, Krasznahorkai refers to Kurtág’s first opera, Fin de partie, an adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s play Endgame : “Kurtág had read my book And Seiobo Descended to Earth, and he called me on the phone out of the blue. He stammered: ‘Hello, it’s Gyorgy, Gyorgy Kurtág. ’ ‘Oh, Gyorgy Kurtág,’ I said, ‘how are you? ’ ‘I’m fine, I’m fine. ’ ‘What’s it about? ’ I asked. ‘Oh, nothing, nothing, we—we—just now finished your book. ’ ‘Which book?’ ‘Se-se-oibo. ’ ‘Oh, And Seiobo Descended to Earth . Did you enjoy it? ’ ‘Yes, actually, the reason for the call is because we want to tell you that we love you. ’”

Kurtág and Beckett

Following that conversation, Krasznahorkai visited Kurtág in the south of France, where he was staying with his wife, Marta: "He showed me the first pages of the opera. It was very complicated and spatial, and based on Beckett's Endgame , so we started talking about the playwright.

“I told him about my first experience with Beckett's poems, about his early years, his early poems. Perhaps I had used those poems. (Kurtág) wanted to know my opinion about Beckett, his relationship with language. What impressed him most about Beckett was language. I told him about Beckett's constant struggle with language, because for me, his relationship with it wasn't that at all, but a struggle. He struggled with language because he hated unnecessary words. Kurtág greatly enjoyed that puritanism, his asceticism, like a monk.”

The 2025 Nobel Prize winner for Literature adds that the Irish playwright's early poems were very important to him: “A poem about a man alone on the beach. It's gray and sad. No emotions, nothing. A man on the beach. Cold wind. I was 19 years old, and I wanted to know who wrote those poems. I wanted to know something about the person who wrote them because I was so young. It was very important to me. How these poems said anything was possible. That tall man on the beach, and the sand. The cold wind. That was very important to Kurtág, too. He said, 'Really, a tall man? How tall? Exactly how tall?' 'I have no idea.' (Laughs) 'Morning or evening?'”

About Béla Tarr and tango

In the same interview, Krasznahorkai recounts a musical incident related to the film adaptation of his novel Satanic Tango (1985), directed by the Hungarian Béla Tarr (1955).

It's a key moment that occurred in a bar scene: "It was a turning point for Béla and me. Up until then, we weren't sure why we were doing that shit. However, that man, the cameraman, started singing; it was a complete improvisation.

“We had this idea that if he could sing, or if he remembered anything, because he'd been drunk all day... He'd brought a harmonica. Suddenly he tried to play and sing: 'Oh, the tango, that my mother used to sing! Oh, the tango, that my mother used to sing! Do you know it? Oh, the tango!'

“Béla and Ágnes (Ágnes Hranitzky, Tarr’s wife) were saying, ‘Please film it, film it. ’ That was out of the story, and it was so heartbreaking. I felt Béla grabbing my leg, because we were sitting together, and his hand was so strong that after a few minutes there was a big bloody stain here on my leg, and Béla cried.

"He wasn't sentimental, but the moment—him singing for us—was so heartbreaking. After that, we realized, 'Okay, we got the movie, thanks to this.'"

Daniel López Aguilar and Fabiola Palapa Quijas

La Jornada Newspaper, Friday, October 10, 2025, p. 5

The work of Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai, winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature, maintains a close connection with the cinema of his compatriot Béla Tarr, who gave rise to some of the most unique productions in European arthouse cinema.

Their first major joint work was Satanic Tango (1994), based on the 1985 novel of the same name. The film, which is over seven hours long, maintains the book's circular structure with 12 chapters that move back and forth, and shows the rural stagnation and moral corruption present in Krasznahorkai's narrative.

Tarr transformed the long paragraphs into multi-minute sequence shots; mud, rain, and silence replace the words, transforming the literary universe into visually powerful images.

Six years later, Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) adapted the novel Melancholy of Resistance (1989).

A small Hungarian village was shaken by the arrival of a circus bringing a huge stuffed whale and a character called The Prince, whose presence unleashed chaos among the inhabitants. Filmed in black and white, the film constituted a visual study of order and entropy, purity and corruption, with a ritual stillness that amplified the symbolic nature of the story.

In The Man from London (2007), adapted from a novel by Georges Simenon, Krasznahorkai wrote the script with Tarr and brought his signature philosophical tone.

Maloin, a railway worker, finds a briefcase of money in the middle of a murder of which he is the only witness.

The story focuses on specific objects, such as a cat or a dance, expands time and image, and raises reflections on the decline of humanism.

His most recent film work was The Turin Horse (2011), loosely inspired by Nietzsche and an original idea by the Hungarian novelist.

The script, written by both and co-directed by Ágnes Hranitzky, proposed a meditation on the exhaustion of the world and the final silence of human beings, representing a closure for their creative bond.

In 2024, László Krasznahorkai visited Mexico to participate in the Guadalajara International Book Fair.

During his stay, he gave a speech as winner of the Formentor Prize and shared his experience with cinema in several interviews.

He explained that, after several initial refusals, he finally agreed to work with Béla Tarr on Satanic Tango, an experience that marked "the beginning of a fruitful creative relationship."

He stated that his style “emerged naturally, closer to music than to traditional writing,” and emphasized that both literature and film allow him to explore the human condition.

"My work addresses universal issues that transcend borders and cultures. I also observe a particular sensitivity among Mexican readers toward themes such as hopelessness, ghosts, and the rituals of everyday life."

Armando G. Tejeda

Correspondent

La Jornada Newspaper, Friday, October 10, 2025, p. 5

Madrid. The two main institutions in Spain for the defense and promotion of the language are the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) and the Cervantes Institute. Just one week before the start of the International Congress on the Language (CILE) in Arequipa, Peru, they have entered into an open and public war, with harsh criticism of each other.

The origin of the confrontation was statements by the director of the Cervantes Institute, the Granada-born poet Luis García Montero, who has held the position since 2018, after being appointed by the current government of Socialist Pedro Sánchez. At a breakfast press conference in Madrid, the writer accused the current president of the RAE, Santiago Muñoz Machado, of being "an expert in conducting business for multi-million-dollar companies." He lamented that the RAE "is in the hands of a professor of administrative law who is an expert in conducting business from his office for multi-million-dollar companies, and that, personally, also creates distances. We have to collaborate, and we try to collaborate; for that, we must respect independence. No one has the right to be at the center and tell others how to speak, but rather to maintain unity within the respect for each person's ability to speak Spanish."

Regarding the rift between the two institutions, he added that it had gone unnoticed until now: “I have to admit that, as a philologist, I was used to talking with Fernando Lázaro Carreter, with Víctor García de la Concha, with Darío Villanueva… great philologists and great men of culture.”

The Royal Academy's response came hours later—partly because some of its members are already in Peru—through a statement warning that the RAE "is deliberating on the statements made this morning by the director of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero, to the media. The secretary general of the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language is also present. The plenary session unanimously agreed to express its absolute condemnation of Mr. García Montero's incomprehensible statements, completely unfortunate and inappropriate on the eve of the start of the CILE."

They add that "this is a fundamental occasion for Spanish culture and language, bringing together representatives from all Spanish-speaking nations, which the director of the Cervantes Institute has clouded with his statements."

They maintain that "the director of the Royal Spanish Academy has been democratically elected twice by the institution's full body, and is not only an expert jurist, but also one of the most renowned essayists and historians in our country, with awards such as the National Essay and History Prizes, in addition to countless accolades from Spanish and foreign academies and universities.

“The attack on its director and president, who has done extraordinary work in the seven years he has led both institutions, offends the RAE and the Association of Language Academies.”

They conclude with a veiled criticism of the Cervantes Institute: "The qualitative differences between the meritorious work of the RAE and any other institution that deals with Spanish and its culture in the world are evident."