The Nobel Prize in Literature has been restored by its awarding to Olga Tokarczuk, Han Kang, and, in 2025, László Krasznahorkai. Krasznahorkai's acceptance speech, Bessette's novel, and McManus's chronicles of tumultuous times are among the topics discussed.
László Krasznahorkai's acceptance speech after winning the Nobel prize has been published in a book titled Enough About Angels. The status of the Nobel Prize in Literature, significantly diminished when it was awarded in 2016 to Bob Dylan, has been restored by its awarding to Olga Tokarczuk, Han Kang, and, in 2025, László Krasznahorkai.
Krasznahorkai's allusive novels have propelled the downtrodden through expectations of redemption that are always protracted and, ultimately, forlorn. In his acceptance speech, Krasznahorkai chose a style familiar to those who know his novels: long sentences that encircle a refutation of hope that might be embodied in the ‘new angels’ who are ‘here among us in their simple street clothes’ but who are wounded by ‘one unjust, thoughtless, undignified act’.
His pessimistic allegory ends by remembering a ‘clochard’ attempting to evade capture in a U-Bahn station: ‘between Good and Evil there is no hope, none whatsoever. ’ Bessette's 1955 novel dismantles the crime novel and the onlooker’s desire to get to the truth, to have been in that fated room. Bessette upends all categorisation: ‘the victim is the culprit. / The culprit is the victim’.
The result is a cacophony of interpretations, exhilarating and, at times, exhausting. The narrative voice is the novel’s most compelling feature. It chastises its own parasociality, its need to be ‘in other people’. It is a haunting commentary on isolation and neurosis, speaking to contemporary voyeurism.
What are we escaping? Twenty Minutes of Silence leaves us with the language of violence, tragedy and death – and the vitalising instruction to play with it. Enemies of the State by Fergus Whelan: The contagious bigotry of a ‘crazy Orangeman’ is a collection of 12 short stories set in Ireland during a different decade in our nation’s recent past. Brenda Fricker, Irish Oscar-winning actor, has died aged 81
Please follow us on Google to support usNobel Prize In Literature László Krasznahorkai Olga Tokarczuk Han Kang Bessette Enemies Of The State By Fergus Whelan Brenda Fricker Twenty Minutes Of Silence Contagious Bigotry ‘Crazy Orangeman’ Isolation And Neurosis Contemporary Voyeurism Language Of Violence Tragedy And Death Vitalising Instruction To Play With It
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