Satantango

WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE 2025 In the darkening embers of a Communist utopia, life in a desolate Hungarian town has come to a virtual standstill. Flies buzz, spiders weave, water drips and animals root desultorily in the barnyard of a collective farm. But when the charismatic Irimias - long-thought dead - returns, the villagers fall under his spell. Irimias sets about swindling the villagers out of a fortune that might allow them to escape the emptiness and futility of their existence. He soon attains a messianic aura as he plays on the fears of the townsfolk and a series of increasingly brutal events unfold. Translated by George Szirtes and Ottilie Mulzet

Review: A modern masterpiece that manages to speak both of its time and to transcend it altogether * Sunday Telegraph *
A monster of a novel: compact, cleverly constructed, often exhilarating * Guardian *