Nobel Prize in Literature 2023 to Jon Fosse

The 64-year-old Norwegian author Jon Fosse has been announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2023. As it was stated by the Swedish Academy, the Prize has been awarded “for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable.”

“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,” said Anders Olsson, chairman of the Nobel committee for literature. “Fosse blends a rootedness in the language and nature of his Norwegian background with artistic techniques in the wake of modernism.”

Jon Fosse is so well-known in Norway that there is a biannual International Fosse Festival in Oslo. He is also one of Europe’s most-performed playwrights. Fosse published his first novel Raudt, svart (Red, Black) in 1983 but his breakthrough as a writer came with the 1989 novel Naustet (Boathouse). In 1992 Fosse wrote his first play Nokon kjem til å kome (Someone Is Going to Come), however his first play to be performed at the National Theater in Bergen was Og aldri skal vi skiljast (And Never Shall We Part) written in 1994.

Jon Fosse has developed his own writing style, which is better known as "Fosse minimalism". It is well-reflrected in his major works including the Septology series of novels, Aliss at the Fire, Melancholy and A Shining.