Hungarian

STOCKHOLM — Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai, whose philosophical, bleakly funny novels often unfold in single sentences, won the Nobel Prize in literature Thursday for his “compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.”

The Nobel judges praised his “artistic gaze which is entirely free of illusion, and which sees through the fragility of the social order combined with his unwavering belief in the power of art,” Steve Sem-Sandberg of the Nobel committee said at the announcement.

“László Krasznahorkai is a great epic writer in the Central European tradition that extends through (Franz) Kafka to Thomas Bernhard, and is characterized by absurdism and grotesque excess,” the Nobel judges said.

The work that won the Nobel Prize in literature

Zsuzsanna Varga, a Hungarian literature expert at the University of Glasgow, said Krasznahorkai’s apocalyptic and surreal novels probe the “utter hopelessness of the condition of human existence,” while also managing to be “incredibly funny.”

Varga said Krasznahorkai’s near-endless sentences made his books the “Hotel California” of literature – once readers get into it, “you can never leave.”

Other books include “The Melancholy of Resistance,” a surreal, disturbing tale set in a small Hungarian town, and “Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming,” the sprawling saga of a gambling-addicted aristocrat.

Several works, including his debut, “Satantango,” and “The Melancholy of Resistance” were turned into films by Hungarian director Béla Tarr.

Varga suggested readers new to Krasznahorkai’s work start with “Satantango,” his debut, which set the tone for what was to follow.

“Satan who is dancing a tango — I mean, how surreal can you be?” she said.

Krasznahorkai has also written several books inspired by his travels to China and Japan, including “A Mountain to the North, a Lake to the South, Paths to the West, a River to the East,” published in Hungarian in 2003.

How Krasznahorkai came to win

Sem-Sandberg said that Krasznahorkai had been on the Nobel radar for some time, “and he has been writing and creating one outstanding work after another.” He called his literary output “almost half a century of pure excellence.”

Krasznahorkai, 71, couldn’t immediately be reached for his reaction. He didn’t speak at the announcement.

He was born in the southeastern Hungarian city of Gyula, near the border with Romania, and has since traveled the world. Throughout the 1970s, he studied law at universities in Szeged and Budapest before shifting his focus to literature.

Krasznahorkai has been a vocal critic of autocratic Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, especially his government’s lack of support for Ukraine after the Russian invasion.

But in a post on Facebook, Orbán was quick to congratulate the writer, saying: “The pride of Hungary, the first Nobel Prize winner from Gyula, László Krasznahorkai. Congratulations!”

In an interview with Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet earlier this year, Krasznahorkai expressed criticism both of Orbán’s political system and the nationalism present in Hungarian society.

“There is no hope left in Hungary today and it is not only because of the Orbán regime,” he told the paper. “The problem is not only political, but also social.”

He also reflected on the fact that he has long been a contender for the Nobel Prize in literature, saying: “I don’t want to lie. It would be very interesting to get that prize. But I would be very surprised if I got it.”

Previous awards for Krasznahorkai and the other Nobels this year

Krasznahorkai has received many earlier awards, including the 2015 Man Booker International Prize. The Booker judges praised his “extraordinary sentences, sentences of incredible length that go to incredible lengths, their tone switching from solemn to madcap to quizzical to desolate as they go their wayward way.”

He also won the National Book Award for Translated Literature in the U.S. in 2019 for “Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming.”

The American writer and critic Susan Sontag once described Krasznahorkai as the “contemporary master of the Apocalypse.” He was also friends with American poet and writer Allen Ginsberg and would regularly stay in Ginsberg’s apartment while visiting New York City.

He’s the first winner from Hungary since Imre Kertesz in 2002. He joins an illustrious list of laureates that includes Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison and Kazuo Ishiguro.

The literature prize has been awarded by the Nobel committee of the Swedish Academy 117 times to a total of 121 winners. Last year’s prize was won by South Korean author Han Kang for her body of work that the committee said “confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”

The literature prize is the fourth to be announced this week, following the 2025 Nobels in medicine, physics and chemistry.

The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday. The final Nobel, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, will be announced on Monday.

Nobel Prize award ceremonies are held on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896. Nobel was a wealthy Swedish industrialist and the inventor of dynamite who founded the prizes.

Each prize carries an award of nearly $1.2 million, and the winners also receive an 18-carat gold medal and a diploma.

Manenkov, Lawless and Corder write for the Associated Press. Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands, and Lawless from London. Justin Spike contributed to this report from Budapest, Hungary.

The six-time MotoGP world champion is undefeated since June and is rapidly closing in on another riders title.

Ducati’s Marc Marquez has delivered a masterclass at the Balaton Park Circuit, winning the first Hungarian Grand Prix in 33 years to secure his seventh straight sprint and main race double and stretching his championship lead to a commanding 175 points.

KTM’s Pedro Acosta and Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi joined Marquez on the podium on Sunday as reigning champion Jorge Martin came fourth – his best finish on the Aprilia since his return from injuries.

Gresini Racing’s Alex Marquez, second in the championship behind his brother, could manage only 14th place after an early fall on the opening lap.

Against the picturesque backdrop of the largest lake in Central Europe, pole-sitter Marc Marquez lost the lead on lap one to drop out of the podium positions, but his tyre strategy proved decisive.

Having clinched his 13th sprint victory of the season on Saturday, Marquez had another good launch to lead into turn one.

But Bezzecchi took the lead on the next turn, as Marquez made contact with the Aprilia and lost speed to drop to fourth.

“Luckily for both of us, I was able to save the crash, and he just continued his way. But from that point, the race changed a bit,” Marquez said.

Bezzecchi and then-second-placed Franco Morbidelli were on soft rear tyres while Marquez was on the medium compound with the Spaniard easily climbing to second once his tyres were fully warmed up.

Acosta also made a smooth overtake on Morbidelli to move up to third, but he had a gap of nearly two seconds with Marquez, who had virtually erased Bezzecchi’s lead as they continually exchanged overtakes.

Marquez pounces

Marquez patiently bided his time, staying on Bezzecchi’s rear wheel. The inevitable moment came on lap 11 when he pounced, using the Aprilia’s slipstream to reclaim the lead before streaking away.

“When I saw that the soft rear tyres started to drop – I was with the medium – I started to attack,” he said. “I had a super nice rhythm. I was flowing on the track.”

Five laps later, Acosta attacked Bezzecchi on the same straight heading into turn one, guiding his KTM past the Aprilia on the inside and carrying that momentum into the next turn to take second.

“I needed the extra grip from the soft [tyre] in braking, so I risked it with the soft. But for us, maybe it was better [to use] the medium,” Bezzecchi said.

Although Acosta had Marquez in his sights, the six-time champion found another gear towards the end of the race and extended his lead to more than three seconds to secure the victory.

However, the second-year MotoGP rider was happy with second place after destroying his bike in a qualifying crash.

“I just want to thank every one of them because yesterday they were working until 2am in the morning to just bring two completely new bikes for this [race],” Acosta said.

The Aprilia garage was all smiles when Martin, who started 16th on the grid, set a fastest lap before finishing fourth – suggesting that injury struggles are now behind him.

Team principal Frederic Vasseur injected some perspective into Hamilton’s situation.

“For sure when you are seven-times world champion, your team-mate is in pole position and you are out in Q2, it’s a tough situation,” Vasseur said.

On the race result, Vasseur pointed out that Ferrari had gambled on a one-stop strategy starting on the hard tyre on a track where overtaking is notoriously difficult, and it “didn’t work”.

“I can understand the frustration from Lewis,” he said, “but this is normal, and he will come back.”

Vasseur, who was instrumental in persuading Hamilton to leave Mercedes to join Ferrari for this season, pointed out that the results in Hungary made his driver’s weekend look worse than it was.

Yes, Hamilton had been 0.247 seconds slower than Leclerc when he was knocked out of qualifying after the second session. But Leclerc himself had found it hard to progress, and Hamilton had been just 0.155secs adrift of his team-mate in the first session.

The past two races have seen a stall in the positive momentum Hamilton had been building after a difficult start to his Ferrari career.

Since Miami in early May, there has been little to choose between the two drivers in qualifying, and Hamilton out-qualified Leclerc in three of the four races before Belgium, a week before Hungary.

Two errors of different kinds in the qualifying sessions for the sprint and grand prix at Spa made Hamilton look uncompetitive when he was anything but.

Hamilton was a match for Leclerc on pace in Belgium, but an off followed by a spin caused by a combination of factors relating to a new braking material saw him out in the first session in sprint qualifying. And the same thing happened when he misjudged the exit of the 180mph+ swerves at Eau Rouge and went slightly outside track limits in qualifying for the grand prix.

Even with the problems in Belgium and Hungary, and the need to adapt to a new car of very different characteristics at the start of the season, Hamilton’s average qualifying deficit to Leclerc is 0.146 seconds this year.

That’s not what Hamilton would expect of himself, but it should be viewed in the context that Ferrari – and many others in F1 – regard Leclerc as the fastest driver over a single lap in the world.

Hamilton’s critics point to his struggles against George Russell in his final season at Mercedes last year.

The 40-year-old has found the ground-effect cars introduced into F1 in 2022 do not fit his late-braking style as well as the previous generation of cars. And it does remain a mystery that he has not been able to adapt as well as would have been expected, or apparently as well as other drivers.

But Vasseur rejected any idea that he might be worried about Hamilton’s situation.

“He’s demanding,” Vasseur said, “but I think it’s also why he’s seven-times world champion, that he’s demanding with the team, with the car, with the engineers, with the mechanics, with myself also. But first of all he’s very demanding with himself.”

FANS are concerned for Lewis Hamilton after his dejected message to his Ferrari colleagues.

Hamilton had a nightmare Hungarian Grand Prix today, finishing in a disappointing 12th.

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The seven-time world champion failed to pick up any points and sounded like a broken man over the team radio post-race.

Hamilton said: “Really sorry about this weekend guys, for losing you points.”

He also reportedly sat in his car for some time after parking it up.

It comes after the Brit’s woeful qualifying session yesterday that saw him exit in Q2 while team-mate Charles Leclerc secured a shock pole.

Hamilton again sounded crestfallen over the team radio, saying: “It’s me every time. I’m useless, absolutely useless.

“The team have no problem. You’ve seen the car’s on pole so we probably need to change driver.”

Told by a member of the Ferrari team that his assessment was wrong, Hamilton replied: “It clearly is. I just drove terribly. It is what it is.”

Hamilton has not finished on the podium in 14 races since making his move to the Scuderia.

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And to cap a disastrous weekend for Ferrari in Hungary, Leclerc slipped to fourth and slammed the team over the radio.

He raged: “This is so incredibly frustrating. We have lost all competitiveness.

“You just had to listen to me, I would have found a different way of managing those issues.

“Now it’s just undriveable. Undrivable. It’s a miracle if we finish on the podium.”

McLaren’s Lando Norris won the Grand Prix and celebrated by kissing his model girlfriend Margarida Corceiro.

May 9 (UPI) — Ukraine said Friday two alleged members of a Hungarian spy network have been detained.

The spies sought military information about the Zakarpattia region, according to the Security Service of Ukraine.

“As a result of the operation in Zakarpattia, the SSU detained two agents of the Hungarian network. The investigation found that both assets were supervised by an officer of Hungarian military intelligence, whose identity has already been established,” the SSU said in a statement.

“This is the first case in the modern history of the country when espionage activities of a foreign intelligence service from an EU country to the detriment of Ukrainian security have been officially recorded.”

Speaking on the ATV television channel, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said “anti-Hungarian propaganda is often employed in Ukraine… which often turns out to have no basis in fact.”

But the SSU said Ukraine has the evidence and has neutralized the Hungarian spy network. SSU Counterintelligence documented the alleged spies’ moves and seized phones and other material evidence during searches at their homes.

The SSU said one of the detained alleged spies was a 40-year-old former military serviceman from Berehove recruited by Hungary and put on standby in 2021.

The second detainee is a former servicewoman for the Security and Defense Forces of Ukraine who left her unit this year.

The spy network’s goal, according to the SSU, “was to collect information on how well Zakarpattia region is protected military-wise, to look for vulnerabilities in the region’s ground and air defense, as well as to study the socio-political views of local population, including scenarios of their behavior if Hungarian troops enter the region.”

The man was accused of personally spying on Ukraine defense forces locations and the coordinates of S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems. The SSU said the spy traveled to Hungary to report to a Hungarian intelligence officer and was paid cash by his handler.

According to the SSU, he was given a mobile phone with an encrypted channel to transmit Ukrainian military data to Hungary.

He was tasked with identifying cars of the Ukrainian security and defense forces and giving Hungary data on Ukraine’s war losses and developments on the front line.

The SSU said the woman accused of spying was assigned tasks including “informing the Hungarian special service on the presence of aircraft and helicopters in Zakarpattia region, as well as on the defense systems of the military unit where she had served.”

Ukraine’s security service posted a YouTube video that included statements in Hungarian from the two spy suspects. Their faces were obscured as they spoke.

Both spy suspects were detained for suspicion of high treason and face life imprisonment if convicted under martial law.