Overview

Set in contemporary times, Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming tells the story of a Prince Myshkin–like figure, Baron Béla Wenckheim, who returns at the end of his life to his provincial Hungarian hometown. Having escaped from his many casino debts in Buenos Aires, where he was living in exile, he longs to be reunited with his high-school sweetheart Marika. Confusions abound, and what follows is an endless storm of gossip, con men, and local politicians, vividly evoking the small town’s alternately drab and absurd existence. All along, the Professor—a world-famous natural scientist who studies mosses and inhabits a bizarre Zen-like shack in a desolate area outside of town?offers long rants and disquisitions on his attempts to immunize himself from thought. Spectacular actions are staged as death and the abyss loom over the unsuspecting townfolk.

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9780811239707

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Reviews

""A literary heir to Kafka, Beckett, and Dostoyevsky: Krasznahorkai's genius has been his ability to absorb the tectonic changes of politics and culture into his singular style. His challenge of despair is applicable under any economic system. Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming is his latest, longest, strangest, and possibly greatest novel?suffused with nihilism, but deeply funny.""-- ""The Baffler"" ""Krasznahorkai establishes his own rules and rides a wave of exhilarating energy in this sprawling, nonpareil novel, which harkens back to early works such as Satantango...his vortex of a novel compares neatly with Dostoevsky and shows Krasznahorkai at the absolute summit of his decades-long project. Apocalyptic, visionary, and mad, it flies off the page and stays lodged intractably wherever it lands.""-- ""Publishers Weekly"" ""Krasznahorkai is a pungent delineator of character, and the landscape of his imaginary city is peopled with figures as busy and distinctive as those of a painting by Bruegel. While the novel energetically pursues Krasznahorkai's habitual themes - disorder, spiritual drought, the impossibility of meaning in the absence of God - it does so in a tone that glitters with comic detail.""--Jane Shilling ""The New Statesman"" ""Krasznahorkai's headlong comedy of obsession and wonderful squalor set in small-town Hungary. Majestic.""-- ""The New York Times Book Review"" ""László Krasznahorkai's masterpiece.""-- ""The Millions"" Singular and uncompromising, Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming is a masterpiece by one of the great writers of our time.""-- ""National Book Award Judges' citation""

""“Krasznahorkai’s headlong comedy of obsession and wonderful squalor set in small-town Hungary. Majestic."""" -- The New York Times Book Review ""“László Krasznahorkai’s masterpiece.”"" -- The Millions ""Singular and uncompromising, Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming is a masterpiece by one of the great writers of our time."""" -- National Book Award Judges' citation """"Krasznahorkai establishes his own rules and rides a wave of exhilarating energy in this sprawling, nonpareil novel, which harkens back to early works such as Satantango...his vortex of a novel compares neatly with Dostoevsky and shows Krasznahorkai at the absolute summit of his decades-long project. Apocalyptic, visionary, and mad, it flies off the page and stays lodged intractably wherever it lands."""" -- Publishers Weekly """"A literary heir to Kafka, Beckett, and Dostoyevsky: Krasznahorkai’s genius has been his ability to absorb the tectonic changes of politics and culture into his singular style. His challenge of despair is applicable under any economic system. Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming is his latest, longest, strangest, and possibly greatest novel?suffused with nihilism, but deeply funny."""" -- The Baffler """"Krasznahorkai is a pungent delineator of character, and the landscape of his imaginary city is peopled with figures as busy and distinctive as those of a painting by Bruegel. While the novel energetically pursues Krasznahorkai’s habitual themes – disorder, spiritual drought, the impossibility of meaning in the absence of God – it does so in a tone that glitters with comic detail."""" -- Jane Shilling - The New Statesman

Author Information

The winner of the 2019 National Book Award for Translated Literature and the 2015 Man Booker International Prize for lifetime achievement, László Krasznahorkai was born in Gyula, Hungary. Ottilie Mulzet is a literary critic and translator of Hungarian. Mulzet received the National Book Award for Translated Literature in 2019 for her translation of László Krasznahorkai's Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming and the Best Translated Book Award in 2014 for her translation of Krasznahorkai’s Seiobo There Below.  

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