A feature by Paul Kerschen
László Krasznahorkai's 2014 Best Translated Book Award for Seiobo There Below—presented in Ottilie Mulzet's expert translation—serves to cement the Hungarian's status as one of the most original writers. And yet, only a portion of Krasznahorkai's extensive catalog is currently available to Anglophone readers. Here, Paul Kerschen delivers a masterful reading of the award-winning Seiobo There Below and offers a glimpse of what awaits us in coming years, including Destruction and Sorrow beneath the Heavens (forthcoming from Seagull Books in Ottilie Mulzet's rendering), The Prisoner of Urga, and Krasznahorkai's debut short-story collection, Relations of Grace. This essay, originally published in Music & Literature No. 2, is accompanied here by a series of photographs documenting the author's encounter, organized by Osaka University and held at the temple of Hōzan-ji, with the original manuscripts of the fourteenth-century Japanese actor and Noh playwright Ze'ami, whose spirit infuses Seiobo There Below, and whose influence is felt throughout much of Krasznahorkai's as-yet-untranslated oeuvre . . .
A feature by Emily Hoffman
László Krasznahorkai’s Animalinside is, in itself, already an adaptation. The Slovakian choreographer Jaroslav Viňarský has adapted Krasznahorkai’s novella for dance. The performance embodies the modes of existence the text describes, and yet does so within its own aesthetic parameters, with its own aesthetic integrity. At its best, the performance builds upon the original dialogue between the book’s text and images, and becomes a third surface for interpretive ricochet . . .
A feature by Mauro Javier Cardenas
On June 26th, 2012, I found myself touring San Francisco with László Krasznahorkai, who was on his first U.S. tour, promoting the release of Sátántangó. During lunch with László and his wife in Chinatown, I received an email asking if I would moderate a discussion with László at City Lights Books the next day. Presented here for the first time is our conversation from before and after László Krasznahorkai’s appearance at City Lights on June 27th, where the overflowing crowd stood enraptured by his impassioned answers. All the while, László spoke in long, warm monologues, which brought to mind the intense monologues of György Korin, the hero of his novel War & War.
