Norwegian author Jon Fosse has won the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2023 for his innovative plays and prose which “give voice to the unsayable”.
The Prize was announced on Thursday 5 October 2023 in Stockholm.
Jon Fosse is an acclaimed writer who is known for his dramas, which have been performed across Europe and the world although rarely in the UK, along with his novels, poetry, essays, children’s books and translations.
Swedish Academy member Anders Olsson said in the Prize announcement that Fosse’s work “touches on the deepest feelings that you have, anxieties, insecurities, questions of life and death”, and that, “it has a sort of universal impact of everything that he writes. And it doesn’t matter if it is drama, poetry or prose, it the same kind of appeal of basic humanism”.
Fosse said in a statement that, “I see this as an award to the literature that first and foremost aims to be literature, without other considerations”, and that he was “overwhelmed and somewhat frightened” by the award.
Video: The prize announcement
In prose, his most acclaimed work is the “Septology” series of three books, divided into seven parts: “Det andre namnet” (“The Other Name” – 2019), “Eg er ein annan” (“I is Another – 2020), and “Eit nytt namn” (“A New Name” – 2021).
There have been more than 1,000 different productions of his plays around the world, including France, Italy and Spain, but he is rarely performed in the UK, which may be about to change given his new status.
His plays include Dream of Autumn, I Am the Wind, A Summer Day, Someone Is Going to Come, and The Name.
Established by Swedish dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel, the prizes for achievements in literature, science and peace have been awarded since 1901.
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