LÁSZLÓ KRASZNAHORKAI (Gyula, 1954) novelist and screenwriter. After completing his law studies at the University of Szeged and Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, he sought a degree in Hungarian language and literature. His first major novel Satantango, published in 1985, achieved great success. In 1993, his novel The Melancholy of Resistance received the German “Bestenliste-Prize”. According to Susan Sontag, he is “the contemporary Hungarian master of apocalypse who inspires comparison with Gogol and Melville”. In 1996, he was a guest of the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin. In 1990, he spent for the first time a longer period in East Asia. Krasznahorkai renders an account of his experiences in Mongolia and China in his works The Prisoner of Urga and Destruction and Sorrow beneath the Heavens. Since 1985, the renowned director Béla Tarr has made films almost exclusively based on Krasznahorkai’s works, including Satantango and Werckmeister Harmonies. He has been honored with numerous literary prizes, among them the highest arts award of the Hungarian state, the Kossuth Prize.