The Nobel Prize in Literature 2023 is awarded to Jon Fosse on October 5. The Norwegian author was announced as a winner of the prestigious award “for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable.”
The news was announced by the Nobel Prize on their social media today.
The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded annually by the Swedish Academy. The prize is worth 11 million Swedish crowns (approximately INR 8.30 crores).
Jon Fosse said that winning the Nobel Prize in Literature 2023 is both--overwhelming and scary, as per Reuters. "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.
Jon Fosse was born on September 29, 1959 in Haugesund, Norway. His debut novel titled 'Raudt, svart' ('Red, Black') was published in 1983 and it dealt with the theme of suicide. Over the years, he had written several plays, novels, essays, poetry collections, children’s books and translations. While Fosse's works are written in Nynorsk, he known as one of the most widely performed playwrights in the world today.
Books by Norwegian author Jon Fosse are displayed after the announcement of the winners of the 2023 Nobel Prize in literature at Swedish Academy in Stockholm on October 5, 2023. The Swedish Academy awarded the Nobel Literature Prize to Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse, whose plays are among the most widely staged of any contemporary playwright in Europe.
"Fosse’s magnum opus in prose, however, remains the late Septology he completed in 2021: Det andre namnet (2019; The Other Name, 2020), Eg er ein annan (2020; I is Another, 2020) and Eit nytt namn (2021; A New Name, 2021). Extending to 1250 pages, the novel is written in the form of a monologue in which an elderly artist speaks to himself as another person. The work progresses seemingly endlessly and without sentence breaks, but is formally held together by repetitions, recurring themes and a fixed time span of seven days. Each of its parts opens with the same phrase and concludes with the same prayer to God," reads a statement by Anders Olsson, Chairman of the Nobel Committee- The Swedish Academy, on the Nobel Prize's website.
Fosse is the third Norwegian author to win the prestigious Nobel Prize in Literature. The previous three writers were: Bjornstjerne Bjornson in 1903, Knut Hamsun in 1920, Sigrid Undset in 1928.
As per reports, Fosse was driving in the country-side when he received a call from Mats Malm, Permanent Secretary at the Swedish Academy, who had called the writer to inform him about winning the Nobel Prize.
Other awards won by Jon Fosse, 64, include Norwegian Ibsen Award 1996, Nordic Council Literature Prize 2015, Arts Council Norway Honorary Award 2003, among others.
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