Nobel Prize in Literature goes to Norwegian writer for giving ‘voice to the unsayable’
Copenhagen, Oct 5 (EFE).- Norwegian author Jon Fosse won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday “for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable,” the Swedish academy in Stockholm said.
The Nobel Prize in Literature is the fourth in the round of the prestigious awards, after the medicine, physics, and chemistry prizes were announced in previous days and on the eve of the Peace Prize to be announced on Friday.
Fosse’s body of work written in Norwegian Nynorsk and spanning genres consists of a wealth of plays, novels, poetry collections, essays, children’s books, and translations.
“While he is today one of the most widely performed playwrights in the world, he has also become increasingly recognised for his prose,” the academy said.
The literature laureate has written novels heavily pared down to a style “that has come to be known as Fosse minimalism,” the academy said.
The style is evident in his second novel, “Stengd gitar” (1985), in which Fosse presents a harrowing variation on one of his major themes, the critical moment of irresolution.
A young mother leaves her flat to throw rubbish down the chute but locks herself out with her baby still inside. Needing to go and seek help, she is unable to do so since she cannot abandon her child.
While she finds herself, in Kafkaesque terms, before the law, the difference is clear: “Fosse presents everyday situations that are instantly recognisable from our own lives.”
Fosse has much in common with his great precursor in Norwegian Nynorsk literature Tarjei Vesaas.
“Fosse combines strong local ties, both linguistic and geographic, with modernist artistic techniques,” the academy added.
Fosse was born 1959 in Haugesund in Norway. EFE
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