Can Xue, László Krasznahorkai, Haruki Murakami, Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie are among the authors most likely to win this year’s Nobel prize in literature, according to the bookies.
Chinese avant garde author Can Xue, 72, and postmodern Hungarian author Krasznahorkai, 71, are tied as Ladbrokes’ favourite to win, both with odds of 10/1. Can Xue was also the favourite to win last year’s prize, which was ultimately awarded to South Korean author Han Kang.
The recipient of the 2025 prize will be announced on Thursday 9 October at noon BST, and will receive 11m Swedish kronor (£870,000).
“The odds suggest the race for this year’s Nobel literature prize is wide-open as things stand,” Alex Apati of Ladbrokes said. “Can Xue was a considerable favourite this time last year by comparison, with László Krasznahorkai and Haruki Murakami making up the podium spots in the betting right now.”
Can Xue, whose real name is Deng Xiaohua, is known for her experimental style, and has published hundreds of novels, novellas and short stories. In 2019, she was longlisted for the International Booker prize for her novel Love in the New Millennium. Were she to be named laureate, she would become the third Chinese-born person to win a Nobel prize in literature, after novelist Mo Yan in 2012 and Gao Xingjian in 2000.
She is tied neck and neck with Krasznahorkai, whose dystopian, melancholic novels have won numerous prizes, including the 2019 National Book award for translated literature and the 2015 Man Booker International prize. Several of his works, including his novels Satantango and The Melancholy of Resistance, have been adapted into feature films.
Murakami, the 76-year-old Japanese novelist, short-story writer and translator, is third in the race, with 14/1 odds.
Last year, the prize went to Han, a novelist best known internationally for the novels The Vegetarian and Human Acts. Han was chosen by the Nobel committee for her “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”.
Also with 16/1 odds are Cristina Rivera Garza, Enrique Vila-Matas, Gerald Murnane, Mircea Cărtărescu and Thomas Pynchon. Other authors listed by Ladbrokes include Lyudmila Ulitskaya (18/1), Ersi Sotiropoulos (20/1), Atwood (20/1), Michel Houellebecq (20/1), Péter Nádas (20/1), Pierre Michon (20/1) and Rushdie (20/1).
Atwood – the internationally renowned Canadian author of The Handmaid’s Tale and Booker-winning novels The Testaments and The Blind Assassin, along with a host of other works – has for years been tipped to win the award.
The Nobel prize in literature has been awarded 117 times since 1901. Recent laureates include Annie Ernaux, Bob Dylan, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Louise Glück, Peter Handke and Olga Tokarczuk.
