DHAKA: The 2015 edition of the Man Booker International Prize has been won by Hungarian writer Laszlo Krasznahorkai.

The prize is presented once every two years to a living author for a body of work published either originally in English or available in translation in the English language, reports the Times of India.

It was given to Krasznahorkai for his innovative writing with the judges calling him “a visionary writer of extraordinary intensity and vocal range who captures the texture of present day existence in scenes that are terrifying, strange, appallingly comic and often shatteringly beautiful”.

Krasznahorkai’s works like The Melancholy of Resistance, Satantango and Seiobo There Below were called by the judging panel “magnificent works of deep imagination and complex passions, in which the human comedy verges painfully onto transcendence”.

Krasznahorkai who writes in Hungarian has been translated by George Szirtes and Ottilie Mulzet. Krasznahorkai announced he would split the £15,000 translator’s prize between the two translators.

Szirtes translated Satantango and The Melancholy of Resistance while Mulzet translated Seiobo There Below.

BDST: 1013 HRS, MAY 21, 2015
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