The Melancholy of Resistance by László Krasznahorkai (Paperback)

The Melancholy of Resistance is a novel by Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai, winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature, in George Szirtes's English translation. Dreamlike, unsettling and blackly comic, it suits readers drawn to ambitious European literary fiction.

• In midwinter a travelling circus reaches a small Hungarian town, promising the stuffed body of an enormous whale
• Strange rumours and unexplained events spread as people suspect the performers' motives
• Frightened townspeople reach for any source of order, from music and cosmology to fascism
• At its centre are the gentle dreamer Valuska and the scheming Mrs Eszter
• Béla Tarr adapted it for the screen as Werckmeister Harmonies

Details

• Author: László Krasznahorkai
• Translator: George Szirtes
• Publisher: New Directions
• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9780811215046