Stockholm Lecture by Nobel Laureate László Krasznahorkai

Hungarian Nobel laureate writer László Krasznahorkai talked about rebellion, human dignity, angels and hope in his Nobel Prize lecture at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm on Sunday.

"The angels of old are no more, there are only the new ones … and, having lost their wings … they walk among us in simple street clothes," Krasznahorkai said. "We cannot even be so sure that these new angels are arriving from somewhere up there, because it does not even seem as if there would be an 'up there' anymore, as if that too … had given up its place to the eternal somewhere. They also have no message … there is a plea for us to look into their eyes, so that we ourselves can transmit a message to them, only that unfortunately, we have no message to give … what kind of encounter is this?" he asked in his more than 30-minute speech.

He framed his lecture with the thought of him walking around and thinking in his study in a wooden house built on an incline.

László Krasznahorkai stated humans acquired power over the world, flew into space, invented "weapons that could blow up the entire Earth", and created art. "Finally, in accordance with historical progress, you, with complete and utter suddenness, began to believe in nothing at all anymore, and … you are left with only short-term memory now, and so you have abandoned the noble and common possession of knowledge and beauty and the moral good."

"And now you are ready to move out onto the flatlands, where your legs will sink down … but it was beautiful, your path through evolution was breathtaking, only, unfortunately: it cannot be repeated," he added.

Krasznahorkai, 71, was announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art" on October 9. He will accept the Nobel Prize on Wednesday.