Satantango, written by 2025 Nobel laureate László Krasznahorkai, proves that the devil has all the good times. The novel that inspired Béla Tarr’s classic film unfolds in an isolated hamlet over a few rain-soaked days. Only a dozen inhabitants remain in the bleak village, rank with failed schemes, betrayals, infidelity, hopes, and aborted dreams. “Their world,” says translator George Szirtes, “is rough and ready, lost between the cosmic and tragic, in one small corner of the cosmos. Theirs is the dance of death.” Into this world comes, it seems, a messiah…