NORWEGIAN AUTHOR AND PLAYWRIGHT JON FOSSE WINS 2023 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

Thu 05 October 2023:

The recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature has been named as Norwegian playwright and author Jon Fosse, on Thursday.

According to the Swedish Academy, which presented the award to Fosse, “his innovative plays and prose, which give voice to the unsayable,” was recognized.

Fosse is renowned for his distinctive style known as “Fosse minimalism.”

This signature style is prominently showcased 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,” the academy said.

In this gripping narrative, a young mother steps out of her apartment to dispose of trash down the chute but inadvertently locks herself out, leaving her baby inside. Caught in a dilemma, she is unable to do so since she cannot abandon her child.

Fosse masterfully portrays this Kafkaesque scenario, yet what sets his work apart is its ability to capture everyday situations that “resonate deeply with our own lives.”  

“Fosse presents everyday situations that are instantly recognisable from our own lives,” the academy said.

It said 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. He includes in his Wahlverwandschaften such names as Samuel Beckett, Thomas Bernhard and Georg Trakl,” the academy added.

While Fosse shares the negative outlook of his predecessors, his distinctive “gnostic vision cannot be said to result in a nihilistic contempt of the world,” it said.

“Indeed, there is great warmth and humour in his work, and a naïve vulnerability to his stark images of human experience,” according to the academy.

The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded on Friday and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences ends the awards season on Monday.

The Nobel Prizes carry a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1m) from a bequest left by the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel.

Winners also receive an 18-carat gold medal and diploma when they collect their Nobel Prizes at the award ceremonies in December.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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