5th October, 2023
By Nehru Odeh
The 2023 Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to 64-year-old Norwegian novelist and playwright Jon Fosse “for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable”, the Guardian reported.
“I am overwhelmed and grateful,” Fosse said, reacting in a news release issued by his Norwegian publisher. “I see this as an award to the literature that first and foremost aims to be literature, without other considerations.”
Before Thursday’s announcement, at a news conference in Stockholm, Fosse was among the favourites, although Can Xue, a Chinese writer of often surreal and experimental short stories was also tipped, as were Haruki Murakami; Gerald Murnane, a reclusive Australian author; and Laszlo Krasznahorkai, a Hungarian author who Susan Sontag once called a “master of the apocalypse.”
Fosse’s works include the Septology series of novels, Aliss at the Fire, Melancholy and A Shining.
Anders Olsson, chairman of the Nobel Committee for Literature, said: “His huge oeuvre, spanning a variety of genres, comprises around 40 plays and a wealth of novels, poetry collections, essays, children’s books and translations.
“Fosse blends a rootedness in the language and nature of his Norwegian background with artistic techniques in the wake of modernism.”
Fosse’s work has long been lauded throughout continental Europe, but he has recently found a growing audience in the English-speaking world.
By receiving what is widely seen as the most prestigious prize in literature, the author (whose name is pronounced Yune FOSS-eh, according to his translator) joins a list of laureates including Toni Morrison, Kazuo Ishiguro and Annie Ernaux.
Critics have long compared Fosse’s sparse plays to the work of two previous Nobel laureates: Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett. And he had long been tipped to win.
In 2013, British bookmakers temporarily suspended betting on the prize after a flurry of bets on Fosse’s winning. In the end, the action proved unnecessary, as Alice Munro, the Canadian short story writer, took the award.
“He is an exceptional writer, who has managed to find a totally unique way of writing fiction. As his Norwegian editor, Cecilie Seiness put it recently in an interview, if you open any book by Jon and read a couple of lines, it couldn’t be written by anyone else.
“His fiction is incantatory, mystical, and rooted in the landscape of the western fjords where he grew up,” Testard added. “It’s very important to remember that he writes in Nynorsk or New Norwegian, a minority language in Norway, a political act in itself.
“He’s also an exceptional playwright and poet. He’s an incredible mind, and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer person, ”Jacques Testard, Fosse’s fiction publisher, said on hearing the news
Born in 1959 in Haugesund on the west coast of Norway, Fosse grew up in Strandebarm. At age seven, he nearly died in an accident, which he said was “the most important experience” of his childhood and one that “created” him as an artist. In his adolescence, he aspired to be a rock guitarist, before turning his ambitions to writing.
His debut novel, Raudt, svart (“Red, Black”), was published in 1983. His first play to be performed, Og aldri skal vi skiljast (“And Never Shall We Part”), was staged at the National Theater in Bergen in 1994. Yet, the first play he wrote, Nokon kjem til å komme (“Someone Is Going to Come”), would lead to his breakthrough in 1999 when French director Claude Régy staged it in Nanterre.
Fosse has written more than 30 plays, including Namnet (“The Name”), Vinter (“Winter”) and Ein sommars dag (“A Summer’s Day”). His longer works include the Septology trilogy, the third volume of which was shortlisted for the international Booker Prize in 2022.
Septology, which Fosse started during a pause from playwrighting and after converting to Catholicism in 2013, is about an ageing painter, Asle, living alone on the south-west coast of Norway and reflecting on his life. There in Bjørgvin lives another Asle, who is also a painter but struggles with alcohol. The doppelgangers are consumed by the same existential questions about death, faith and love.
In 1989, the same year that Fosse’s novel Naustet (“Boathouse”) came out, the writer taught fellow Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgård, who was a student at the Academy of Writing in Hordaland. “Fosse’s voice is unmistakable in whatever he writes, and is never anything if not present,” wrote Knausgård in 2019.
Fosse’s UK publisher is Fitzcarraldo Editions, which also publishes Annie Ernaux, the winner of the 2022 Nobel prize in literature. Fosse’s win marks the London-based independent publisher’s third win in five years: Olga Tokarczuk was made laureate in 2018.
Fosse will receive the prize at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 Norwegian novelist and playwright wins 2023 Nobel Prize in literature