Jon Fosse, winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature

Nobel Prize in Literature awarded to Norwegian author Jon Fosse

STOCKHOLM-- Norwegian author Jon Fosse has won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy announced here today.

Fosse's immense body of work, written in Norwegian Nynorsk and spanning a variety of genres, consists of a large number of plays, novels, poetry collections, essays, children's books and translations, the academy said.

Fosse was born in 1959 in Haugesund, Norway. "While today he is one of the most widely performed playwrights in the world, he has also become increasingly recognized for his prose," the academy said in the news release.

In its justification, the Swedish Academy says, among other things, that Jon Fosse gives voice to the unsaid and, as paradoxical as it may seem, this is exactly how great literature can work. It is in the spaces, in the rhythm and in the silence between people where much of the tension lies in Fosse's prose and drama.

In reality, we are talking here about a form of classical existentialism, a recognition that man is fundamentally left to himself in this world. Everything else is incomprehension, volatility and distance.

In his later books, including the seven-volume (!) Septologien, Fosse twists his story in an almost ruthless literary way.

Memories and dreams, reality and fantasy come together in an incessant stream. The main character, Asle, is drawn towards the transcendent, in what eventually becomes a unique and evocative creed.

In a text that is written without a single period! It is very boldly done, but Jon Fosse orchestrates this entire work with symphonic assurance. Beneath this and other texts by Fosse, there is a sense of something precarious waiting to break through.

It keeps the reader attentive far forward in the chair and uses the rhythm and touch of the language to the fullest. It's compelling, it's dark, it's repetitive. You will never doubt that you are in a waterfall universe. No one else in Norwegian literature can imitate him in such artistic intransigence. But Norway is no longer the natural criterion for Jon Fosse.

Now he is up there on Parnassus, among the best writers living and deceased that the world has ever fostered! Jon Fosse has been writing books for 40 years, since his debut in 1983. Novels, stories, children's books, essays, poetry and, therefore, theater.

To this we must add the fact that he has translated several plays into the rich Norwegian Nynorsk, with a special fondness for Greek tragedies. We are talking here about a quite unique literary work. Fosse has never hidden the fact that he is characterized by a pietistic background, and the religious dimension has become increasingly evident in his literature. Ten years ago he also announced his conversion to Catholicism.

But anyone who thinks Jon Fosse only writes sensitive books about spirituality, anxiety and longing is shamefully mistaken. His books are also strongly sensual. Here you can smell the smell of birch wood, roast pork and scraped balls from the pages of the book. And in the eternal darkness of November to which Fosse so often adds his actions, there is a ray of light and pulse.

Jon Fosse is probably a global name, but he is also unmistakably Western. And through the darkness and the rain, there are still glimmers of Western humor.

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