Norwegian author Jon Fosse wins the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature

Jon Fosse, 64-year-old Norwegian author, playwright, and translator, was announced as the winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature on October 5, 2023. According to the awarding body, the Swedish Academy, the author was recognised for his "innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable".

Anders Olsson, chair of the Nobel Literature Committee, said Fosse's work is rooted "in the language and nature of his Norwegian background". 

One of his country's most-performed dramatists, Fosse has written some 40 plays as well as novels, short stories, children's books, poetry and essays. His latest book, Septology (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2022), a semi-autobiographical magnum opus of seven parts spreading across three volumes about a man who meets another version of himself, runs to 1,250 pages without a single full stop. The third volume was shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize.

In the official announcement post on the social media site X, The Nobel Prize committee states that "Jon Fosse writes novels heavily pared down to a style that has come to be known as Fosse Minimalism." The Academy had stated earlier that "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".

Fosse himself was driving in the countryside when Matt Malm, permanent secretary of the academy, called Fosse to inform him of the win. The dramatist promised to drive home carefully.

"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 said in a statement later.

He also told the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK that he was "surprised but also not" to have won. "I've been part of the discussion for 10 years and have more and less tentatively prepared myself that this could happen", he said.

Jacques Testard, Fosse's fiction publisher, said upon hearing the news: "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."

Jon Fosse was born in 1959 in Haugesund, Rogaland County, and grew up in Strandebarm, Hardanger He started writing when he was about 12 years old. When he was a teenager, Fosse was interested in becoming a rock guitarist. When he no longer thought he would be a rockstar, he could spend more time writing.

The author studied comparative literature at the University of Bergen. His first novel, Raudt, Svart (Red, Black), was published in 1983. He earned a Master's degree in Comparative Literature in 1987, also from the University of Bergen.

Fosse's first play, "Og aldri skal vi skiljast" (And We'll Never Be Parted), was performed and published in 1994.

Fosse is the most-performed Norwegian playwright after Henrik Ibsen.

Amrin Tasnim Rafa is a former intern at SHOUT and currently an intern at Star Books and Literature.