2023 Nobel Prize in Literature

The 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Norwegian playwright and author Jon Fosse for "his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable".[1] He is the fourth Norwegian recipient of the prize.[2][3]

2023 Nobel Prize in Literature
Jon Fosse
"for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable."
Date
  • 5 October 2023
    (announcement)
  • 10 December 2023
    (ceremony)
LocationStockholm, Sweden
Presented bySwedish Academy
First awarded1901
WebsiteOfficial website

Laureate
Main article: Jon Fosse

Jon Fosse was born in 1959 in Haugesund on the west coast of Norway. His immense bibliography spans a variety of genres such as plays, novels, poetry collections, essays, children's literature and translations.

Fosse's breakthrough plays Namnet (1995; The Name, 2002), Natta syng sine songar (1998; Nightsongs, 2002), Draum om hausten (1999; Dream of Autumn, 2004), and Dødsvariasjonar (2002; Death Variations, 2004) explore the existential themes of human emotion, paradox, experience of divinity, and vulnerability in a harrowing yet innovative way with language and modernist artistic techniques. [Fosse] developed his dramatic ingenuity through the influences of Vesaas, Beckett, Bernhard and Trakl.[4] For his plays, he has been regarded as the most performed Norwegian playwright after Henrik Ibsen.[5]

Some consider Fosse's magnum opus in prose to be Septology,[5] which 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). The series follows extraordinarily an aging artist's encounter with another version of himself, explorations of the human condition, reckoning with the divine, and daring reflections of what it means to live.[2]

Prize announcement

Minutes after the prize announcement, Carin Klaesson interviewed Nobel Committee chairman Anders Olsson. Asked as to why Fosse was selected as the 2023 laureate in Literature, he explained:

"John Fosse is a fantastic author in many ways, and it is so strange with him as a writer because he touches you so deeply when you read him... What is special with him is that he has this special closeness, it touches on the deepest feelings that you have – anxieties, insecurities, questions of life and death – such things that every human being actually confronts from the very beginning. In that sense, I think he reaches very far and reaches a universal impact in everything that he writes, and it doesn't matter if it is drama, poetry or prose. It is the same kind of appeal to this basic humanness."[6]

Reactions

Personal reactions

Interviewed by Manisha Lalloo, a correspondent of the Nobel Prize's Outreach, Fosse expressed that he was greatly surprised when he won the prize even though he was used to being on the betting list speculations. Fosse was driving at the time on his way to Frekhaug, a village on Norway's west coast near the city of Bergen, when permanent secretary Mats Malm called him to inform he was this year's Nobel laureate. Malm told him that if he did not believe it he could watch the television and watch the announcement.

Asked as to how he spent his first day as a laureate, he responded:

"My Norwegian publisher has tried to organize a kind of system if this would happen. And so I went to meet the press, and a lot turned up and I didn't know how they knew it, so it took quite a while to do these interviews. And when I came back home, I had hundreds of emails. People are very kind to me they write beautiful stories about my writing to me and I am honestly happy for getting the prize so I tried to answer each and everyone about it. So it's an enormous response, I think, and it's difficult to cope with it, of course, to answer that many emails or messages. It takes quite a lot of time.[7][8]

Fosse made mention of one particular reader, a Greek woman, who wrote a very touching email to him saying that his play Dødsvariasjonar (Death Variations) was "the reason she was still alive otherwise she would have already parted."[7] He also gave an wonderful advice to aspiring writers, saying:

"You must stick to yourself. You must listen to yourself, to your inner voice and not to others. When my first books were published and my first play was produced, the reviews were almost all of them really, really bad. I decided not to listen to it and that to listen to myself, to what I knew was good writing.[7]

Nobel Committee

The Swedish Academy's 2023 Nobel Committee is composed of the following members:[9]

Committee Members
Seat No. Picture Name Elected Position Profession
4 Anders Olsson
(b. 1949)		 2008 committee chair literary critic, literary historian
11 Mats Malm
(b. 1964)		 2018 associate member
permanent secretary		 translator, literary historian, editor
12 Per Wästberg
(b. 1933)		 1997 member novelist, journalist, poet, essayist
13 Anne Swärd
(b. 1969)		 2019 member novelist
9 Ellen Mattson
(b. 1963)		 2019 member novelist, essayist
14 Steve Sem-Sandberg
(b. 1958)		 2021 member journalist, author, translator

References
  1. Edwards, Christian; Upright, Ed (5 October 2023). "Nobel Prize in literature goes to Jon Fosse for plays and prose that 'give voice to the unsayable'". CNN.
  2. The Nobel Prize in Literature 2023 nobelprize.org
  3. Ella Creamer (5 October 2013). "Jon Fosse wins the 2023 Nobel prize in literature". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 October 2023.
  4. "The Nobel Prize in Literature 2023". NobelPrize.org.
  5. "Where to start with: Jon Fosse | Books | The Guardian". amp.theguardian.com.
  6. "Prize announcement – "What is special is that he touches on the deepest feelings that you have"". nobelprize.org.
  7. "First reactions | Jon Fosse, Nobel Prize in Literature 2023 | Telephone interview". YouTube. 6 October 2023. Retrieved 7 October 2023.
  8. Jon Fosse – Interview nobelprize.org
  9. The Nobel Committee 2023 – Nobel Prize in Literature svenskaakademien.se
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