Fosse wins Nobel Prize

Norwegian author and playwright Jon Fosse has been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature for ‘his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable’.

Fosse is the author of numerous works across a variety of genres, including novels, plays, poetry collections, essays, children’s books and translations. His recent work includes the seven-part novel series Septology (Giramondo), translated into English by Damion Searls, and published in the UK by Fitzcarraldo.

Nobel committee for literature chairman Anders Olsson said that Fosse, in ‘his huge oeuvre’, blends ‘a rootedness in the language and nature of his Norwegian background with artistic techniques in the wake of modernism’.

Fitzcarraldo publisher Jacques Testard told the Bookseller: ‘Everyone at Fitzcarraldo Editions is over the moon that Jon Fosse has won the Nobel Prize in Literature. He’s an exceptional novelist, playwright and poet whose work is deeply rooted in the landscape of the Western Fjords in Norway, where he grew up.

‘He writes about universal themes—love, death, friendship, grief—in a prose style that is totally idiosyncratic, almost incantatory. Reading him is a very powerful experience, and I’m delighted that his work will now reach so many more readers.’

Giramondo publisher Ivor Indyk said: ‘Septology is an extraordinary work, both for the rhythm of Fosse’s writing, and its scale, which powers towards the transcendental. It is often said that readers prefer short novels these days, but Fosse’s novel—like another large book, Alexis Wright’s recently published Praiseworthy—offers an immersion in large realities which can’t be matched in any other medium.’

Fosse will be presented with the 11 million SEK (A$1.6m) prize at a ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, on 10 December. Last year’s Nobel Prize in Literature recipient was French writer Annie Ernaux.

Category: International news