Jon Fosse wins the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature for ‘giving voice to the unspeakable’

The 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature has just been awarded to writer Jon Fosse for “his innovative works and his prose that gives voice to the inexpressible,” the Swedish Academy announced on Thursday, October 5, in Stockholm.

Fosse, 64, is originally from Norway. His work consists of approximately 40 plays, numerous novels, poetry, essays, children’s books and translations. The committee praised the author’s style, known as ‘Fosse minimalism’.

“Fosse presents everyday situations that are immediately recognizable in our own lives. “The radical reduction in language and dramatic action express the most powerful human emotions of fear and helplessness in the simplest terms,” the commission argued in its decision.

His masterpiece, seven texts grouped in one part entitled Septologyfollows the story of an elderly, widowed painter who lives alone as he struggles with the realities of religion, identity, art and family life.

Septology, which runs to some 800 pages, is praised for its formal experimentation. “Fosse combines strong local ties, both linguistic and geographical, with modernist artistic techniques,” said the selection committee, which named Irish playwright Samuel Beckett and Austrian poet Georg Trakl among those who influenced his style.

“Although Fosse shares the negative perspective of his predecessors, it cannot be said that his particular Gnostic vision results in a nihilistic contempt for the world. In fact, there is great warmth and humor in his work, and a naive vulnerability to his raw images of the human experience,” the committee said. (JO)