Books by 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature winner 'sold out' quickly

Just 3.5 hours after Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai was announced as the winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature, his novel 'The Satanic Dance' quickly sold out on all fronts.

Released in 2022, Satan's Dance is the second novel by the 2025 Nobel Prize winner in Vietnamese translation. Because of its distinctive, challenging and somewhat difficult-to-read writing style, the book had moderate sales before the announcement of the victory.

2 novels in translation by László Krasznahorkai

PHOTO: TD

In terms of content, this is a postmodern novel, told from multiple perspectives. The structure of the chapters is like a tango with 6 steps forward and 6 steps back. Each chapter is a long paragraph without any line breaks.

The bulk of the story takes place in a rundown Hungarian settlement near an unnamed town, where the residents are virtually cut off from the outside world . The main character, Irimiás, a con man pretending to be a savior, returns after lying about his death, and then forces the residents to hand over all of his hard-earned money after convincing them to move to a new settlement, which he soon realizes is also a lie.

The book shows the gloom and sadness of the scenery, the setting and the extremely suffering people in the whole easily remind of the apocalypse. Before that, War and War was also released (in 2017), and is now out of stock.

Mr. Nguyen Xuan Minh - Copyright Director at Nha Nam - the unit that produced the work said, because the author is relatively difficult to read, the group of readers who love literature welcomed Satan's Dance quite enthusiastically, but on the mass level, not too many readers know about it.

Translator Giap Van Chung also shared about László Krasznahorkai: "His writing is not easy to read, even for Hungarians. Hungarian critics, writers and readers have very different opinions about him. Besides positive views, many opinions say that he has a pessimistic, negative view of the present world and the future of human civilization."

László Krasznahorkai becomes the second Hungarian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 23 years.

PHOTO: THE GUARDIAN

However, the Nobel Prize in Literature can be said to be a boost. According to the reporter's observation, after only 3.5 hours of awarding the prize, all the books on the e-commerce platforms of the book company were sold out. According to the disclosure, if reprinted, it would take 2 weeks for the new batch of books to be released to the market.

This is quite similar to Han Kang before, when White also quickly sold out after the announcement night, leading to the re-release of The Nature of Man, The Vegetarian as well as the release of new works.

It is known that translator Giap Van Chung also translated another work by Krasznahorkai after completing the translation of Satan's Dance , while translator Bui Binh An - who translated Jon Fosse, winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature - is also working on another translation.

This shows that Nobel Prize-winning authors are increasingly being exploited by book companies and read by Vietnamese readers, as since Annie Ernaux, many works by prize-winning writers have been continuously published.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/sach-cua-chu-nhan-nobel-van-chuong-2025-chay-hang-nhanh-chong-185251009225627815.htm