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Winner of the 2015 Man Booker International Prize. Beauty, in László Krasznahorkai's new novel, reflects, however fleeting, the sacred - even if we are mostly unable to bear it. In Seiobo There Below we see the Japanese goddess Seiobo returning to mortal realms in search of perfection. An ancient Buddha being restored; the Italian renaissance painter Perugino managing his workshop; a Japanese Noh actor rehearsing; a fanatic of Baroque music lecturing to a handful of old villagers; tourists intruding into the rituals of Japan's most sacred shrine; a heron as it gracefully hunts its prey. Told in chapters that sweep us across the world and through time, covering the furthest reaches of human experience, Krasznahorkai demands that we pause and ask ourselves these questions: What is sacred? How do we define beauty? What makes great art endure? Melancholic and mesmerisingly beautiful, this latest novel by the author of *Satantango *shows us how to glimpse the divine through extraordinary art and human endeavour. Winner of Best Translated Book of the Year Award 2014. Translated by Ottilie Mulzet ** ### Review “Near-infinite sentences in a nonlinear narrative shuttling across time and space, linked only by occasional appearances from a Japanese goddess? It sounds daunting, I realize. Yet the amazing thing about *Seiobo There Below* is that Krasznahorkai makes the whole thing feel utterly natural and utterly relevant. Krasznahorkai is one of contemporary literature's most daring and difficult figures, but although this book is ambitious, it isn't ever obscure. On the contrary: it places upon us readers the same demands of all great art, and allows us to grasp a vision of painstaking beauty if we can slow ourselves down to savor it.” (NPR Books) “Krasznahorkai is an expert with the complexity of human obsessions. Each of his books feel like an event, a revelation, and *Seiobo There Below* is no different.” (The Daily Beast) “László Kraznahorkai has given us a work that shimmers under a prism of hidden meanings. Our task is to connect the dots, experience the mystery of the text, and embrace moments of bewilderment with patience, openness, and preparation for a deeply meaningful encounter.” (The Millions) “Krasznahorkai’s erudition is staggering, but the way he relates the choosing of the wood for the shrine, or the restoration of a canvas, is so attentive and so modest that is sidesteps pedantry entirely, and instead participates in the very concentration it describes. The chapters are numbered according to the Fibonacci sequence, in which each number is the sum of the two before it, and indeed, *Seiobo There Below* compounds and reinforces itself ever more rapidly, its scope soon defying human proportions... *Finishing Seiobo There Below* is like walking out of a cathedral: its parting gift is a ringing in the ears. This book is magnificent and will outlive interpretation.” (Madeleine LaRue - The Coffin Factory) “Tinged both with sadness and an anxiety about the capability of language, this brilliantly ambitious novel, like the tragic poetry of one of its characters, becomes a 'ravishing cadenza.'” (Publishers Weekly) “Those lucky enough to be familiar with Krasznahorkai’s work will recognize the breathless prose as nothing new from the author. His obsession with detail and process recalls Melville’s prose, while the page-long sentences bring to mind the stream-of-conscious modernism of Joyce or Faulkner. But there is a kind of damp, earthy darkness all of Krasznahorkai’s own that makes it hard to pin down an easy comparison. As a result, *Seiobo There Below* is not simple to read; it is often enormously dense, complex and difficult. But Krasznahorkai rewards patience generously.” (New York Daily News) ### About the Author László Krasznahorkai was born in Gyula, Hungary in 1954. He has won numerous international literary awards and his works have been translated into many languages. Ottilie Mulzet is a literary critic and translator of Hungarian. New Directions published her translation of Krasznahorkai’s Animalinside.