A ‘visionary’ Hungarian writer has been announced as the winner of the sixth Man Booker International Prize for his ‘achievement in fiction on the world stage’.

Laszlo Krasznahorkai, who writes in his native tongue, was awarded the biannual prize, which is worth £60,000 and awards an artist's body of work. He was up against 10 other authors.

The judges said at the awards ceremony, which took place at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum: ‘What strikes the reader above all are the extraordinary sentences […] of incredible length, their tone switching from solemn to madcap to quizzical to desolate as they go their wayward way.’

Krasznahorkai, 61, gained notoriety in the late Eighties and early Nineties, following the big-screen adaptation of his novel Satantango. The black and white drama was a patience-testing seven hours long.

We’ll get the popcorn, OK?