Summary of Chasing Homer
The protagonist of “Chasing Homer” by the Hungarian Nobel Prize laureate Krasznahorkai has been on the run for many years, pursued by men who want to kill him. He travels along the Croatian coast and ends up on the island of Mljet. There, among a group of tourists, he learns from a guide that this is where Odysseus was reputedly detained by the nymph Calypso, preventing his return home.
Reasons to read Chasing Homer
“Chasing Homer” is a short and dark novella about a paranoic man, hunted by unknown pursuers for reasons left unexplained. The novel makes various references to Homer’s Odyssey. “Chasing Homer” is a captivating study of madness and paranoia, humorous, but also unsettling. Each chapter features an illustration by artist Max Neumann and includes a QR code to a jazz soundtrack by Miklos Szilveszter. The author, László Krasznahorkai, is a renowned Hungarian writer, celebrated for his post-modern novels “Satantango” and “The Melancholy of Resistance”. He was awarded the International Booker Prize in 2015 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2025.
Setting: Mljet (Croatia)
Original title: Mindig Homérosznak
Year of publication: 2019
Nr of pages: 96
