The 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Norwegian author and dramatist Jon Fosse on Thursday “for his innovative plays and prose that give voice to the unsayable,” according to the award-giving committee.
“His immense oeuvre written in Norwegian Nynorsk and spanning a variety of genres consist of a wealth of plays, novels, poetry collections, essays, children’s books, and translations,” according to the press release.
Fosse, one of the world’s most widely performed playwrights, has also gained recognition for his prose. Fosse, who was born in 1959 in Haugesund on Norway’s west coast, is best known for his dramas, though he also writes poetry, essays, children’s books, and translations.
His immense oeuvre written in Norwegian Nynorsk and spanning a variety of genres consists of a wealth of plays, novels, poetry collections, essays, children’s books, and translations.
Nobel Committee press release
His work “touches on the deepest feelings that you have, anxieties, insecurities, questions of life and death,” according to Swedish Academy member Anders Olsson. “Everything he writes has a sort of universal impact.” And it doesn’t matter if it’s theatre, poetry, or prose; it all has the same core humanist appeal,” Olsson remarked.
Fosse, a long-time contender for the award and one of the betting favorites this year said he was “overwhelmed and somewhat frightened” by the honor.
“I see this as an award to the literature that first and foremost aims to be literature, without other considerations,” he added in a written statement.
The 64-year-old is the fourth Norwegian and the first since 1928 to win the Nobel Prize for literature, this year worth 11 million Swedish crowns (about $1 million).
“I was surprised, but in a way, I wasn’t,” he told Swedish public television SVT. I’ve been a member of the discussion for ten years and have more or less deliberately prepared myself for the possibility of it happening for ten years.”
He informed Norwegian channel TV2 that there were no more huge prizes to be won. “Everything will be downhill from now on.”
The famous Nobel Prizes are awarded in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace. When Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor famous for dynamite creation, died in 1896, he left behind a legacy through these awards. Sweden’s central bank established the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1968.
