The Last Wolf & Herman : Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2025 - Fiction in translation

FROM THE WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE 2025

In The Last Wolf, a philosophy professor is mistakenly hired to write the true tale of the last wolf of Extremadura, a barren stretch of Spain. His miserable experience is narrated in a single, rolling sentence to a patently bored bartender in a dreary Berlin bar.

In Herman, a master trapper is asked to clear a forest's last 'noxious beasts.' Herman begins with great zeal, although in time he switches sides, deciding to track entirely new game... In Herman II, the same events are related from the perspective of strange visitors to the region, a group of hyper-sexualised aristocrats who interrupt their orgies to pitch in with the manhunt of poor Herman...

These intense, perfect novellas, full of Krasznhorkai's signature sense of foreboding and dark irony, are perfect examples of his craft.

Translated by George Szirtes and John Batki

MEDIA REVIEWS

The Last Wolf reveals what a light-footed and lucid writer Krasznahorkai is, how he entertains as well as disturbs. The book is an excellent short introduction to his fiction, much as Metamorphosis is to Kafka ... Krasznahorkai's method is to examine reality "to the point of madness" and he does so with majestic style and black comedy. - Luke Brown, Financial Times

Unforgettably visceral and beautiful - Observer

Together, The Last Wolf and Herman raise a set of spiritual questions that affirms their author as one of the most important - and eccentric - writers working today. - Spectator

Melancholy, fantastical and entirely original ... seductive and comical, too - Adam Thirlwell, Guardian

Exquisite ... claustrophobic, exhilarating and tinged with fatal comedy - New Statesman

Wonderful ... perfectly judged - David Mills, Sunday Times

A visionary writer of extraordinary intensity and vocal range who captures the texture of present day existence in scenes that are terrifying, strange, appallingly comic and often shatteringly beautiful ... magnificent works of deep imagination - Man Booker International Prize citation

The Last Wolf is a great introduction to the world of László Krasznahorkai. Enter here and keep going. - Sjón

[Krasznahorkai has] a magnificently strange and hypnotic way of thinking. - TLS