Norwegian author Jon Fosse hailed Nobel prize winner in literature

Norwegian author Jon Fosse has won this year’s Nobel Prize in literature for his significant contribution to the industry, especially with his prose that easily evokes and expresses powerful human emotions. He is the first Norwegian author to win the award since 1928.

“The 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to the Norwegian author Jon Fosse ‘for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable,’” award-giving body chairman Andres Olsson wrote on Oct. 5. 

His works, which consist of poetry, essays, novels, and children's books have been translated into about 40 languages; His plays, meanwhile, had over 1,000 different productions around the globe. His outstanding ability to write pieces that express powerful human emotions, like anxiety in the simplest ways he knows how, made him one of the most recognized and widely performed playwrights. 

Some of his works include a 1996 play dubbed Nokon kjem til å komme’ (Someone Is Going to Come, 2002)—his breakthrough piece in Europe.

The 64-year-old playwright is also known for his distinct style called “Fosse minimalist,” which is evidently seen in his 1985 novel Stengd gitar, which had a major theme of “critical moment of irresolution.”

“In his radical reduction of language and dramatic action, he expresses the most powerful human emotions of anxiety and powerlessness in the simplest everyday terms,” Olsson said.

“It is through this ability to evoke man’s loss of orientation, and how this paradoxically can provide access to a deeper experience close to divinity, that he has come to be regarded as a major innovator in contemporary theatre,” he continued. 

The Swedish Academy awarded him a whopping prize of 11 million Swedish kronor or $996,000 (P56 million). 

"I am overwhelmed, and somewhat frightened. I see this as an award to the literature that first and foremost aims to be literature, without other considerations," Fosse told Reuters in a statement. 

Fosse joins the stellar lineup of Nobel prize winners in the same category, including last year’s winner Annie Ernaux, who is known for her works examining memory and social inequality, Tanzanian-British novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah, and essayist Louise Glück.