Norwegian author receives the Nobel Prize in literature
Playwright, novelist ‘simply cannot believe it’
Norwegian novelist, poet, and playwright Jon Fosse — who has found a growing audience in the English-speaking world for novels that grapple with themes of aging, mortality, love, and art — was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature Thursday “for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable.”
A prolific writer who has published some 40 plays, as well as novels, poetry, essays, children’s books, and works of translation, Fosse has long been revered for his spare, transcendent language and formal experimentation.
In a news conference Thursday, Anders Olsson, the chair of the Nobel literature committee, praised “Fosse’s sensitive language, which probes the limits of words.”
Fosse’s work has been translated into around 50 languages, and he is among the world’s most widely performed living playwrights. But he has only recently found major acclaim in English-speaking countries, thanks mainly to his fiction: “A New Name: Septology VI-VII” was a finalist for a National Book Award last year, and two of his novels have been nominated for the International Booker Prize.
He has long been tipped to receive the Nobel. In 2013, British bookmakers even temporarily suspended betting on the award after a flurry of bets on his winning, although the prize did not come his way for another decade. When it finally did, the call from the Nobel Prize’s organizers came while Fosse was traveling to Frekhaug, a village on Norway’s west coast where he has a home.
In a statement sent through his Norwegian publisher, Fosse, 64, said he was “both really happy and really surprised” to receive the award. “I have been among the favorites for 10 years, and felt sure that I would never get the prize,” he said. “I simply cannot believe it.”
Asked what he aimed to convey to readers in his work, Fosse said he hoped to impart a feeling of serenity.
“I hope they can find a kind of peace in, or from, my writing,” he said.
In receiving what is widely seen as the most prestigious honor in literature, Fosse joins a list of laureates including Toni Morrison, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Annie Ernaux.
Critics have compared Fosse’s sparse plays to the work of two other Nobel laureates: Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett. He’s also been called “the new Ibsen,” after renowned Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.
Born in 1959 in Haugesund, Fosse grew up in western Norway, on a small farm in Strandebarm. He started writing poems and stories at age 12 and has said he found writing to be a form of escape. “I created my own space in the world, a place where I felt safe,” he told the Guardian in 2014.