Norway waited 22 years for this: Jun Fosse received the Nobel Prize

On Thursday, October 6, the winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature was announced. It was awarded to Norwegian writer, poet and playwright Jun Fosse for his “innovative plays and prose that give voice to the unspeakable.” Let’s figure out why he was awarded the most prestigious prize in literature.

The history of Norwegian literature is being written right now. It has been 95 years since Norway last won the Nobel Prize for Literature. The first time this happened was in 1903: it was awarded to the playwright Bjornstjerneu Bjornson. The next winner of the international award is still causing a stir of opinion. This is Knut Hamsun. He was awarded it in 1920 for “the monumental work “The Juices of the Earth” about the life of Norwegian peasants who retained their centuries-old attachment to the land and loyalty to patriarchal traditions.” The prize then went to Sigrid Undset in 1928. And now there has been a breakthrough in the latest literature of Norway – its representative has again received the Nobel Prize.

As noted by Norway’s largest newspaper, Aftenposten, Jun Fosse has been a strong contender over the years with his drama, which has been performed on stages around the world. Fosse waited for the Nobel Prize for 22 years, during which, among the favorites, half of the prize winners were over 70 years old. And Fosse is just a “boy” – he is only 64.

The playwright receives the Nobel Prize for his work, which gave his entire work a new twist. The Septologien series of novels (2019–2021) is constantly being translated into new languages, after which the books are nominated for major international awards – and now brought him the most important of them.

Fosse wins the Nobel Prize for Literature while at the peak of his creative powers. Norwegian journalist Ingunn Okland believes, “oddly enough, there is an exception to the rule.” She notes that the Nobel Prize has finally moved away from political overtones. But why exactly did Fosse break the trend?

“I am shocked, very happy and grateful. I prefer to think of this prize as an award for literature,” Foss admits in a press release from Samlaget, which has published his books for many years.

In an interview with the Reuters news agency, Fosse said he was both stunned and a little scared. It is noted that he was driving when he received a message early on Thursday morning: “Yes, I was driving quietly and peacefully. Then the Permanent Secretary of the Nobel Prize, Mats, called and said that I had received the Nobel Prize in Literature this year.”

Immediately after the winner was announced, TV 2 met with the writer: “I have to calm down a little. I’ve been nominated for the Nobel Prize about ten times and I’m used to the hype around it. But I was used to NOT receiving it, so now that I RECEIVED it, it came as a surprise to me. A writer cannot receive anything higher than the Nobel Prize. For a long time I was even embarrassed, because Septology wrote itself. I will continue to write, books will be published in Samlaget, and I will continue to say no to literary festivals.”

The celebration, as the playwright himself reports, took place peacefully with his family. The awarding of the Nobel Prize is an event for all of Norway. Fosse’s neighbor, Jun Sandvik, went to the embankment with the Norwegian flag and congratulations: “This is a sensation, this is simply fantastic!” He told the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang what the prize winner is like in real life: “He is a modest, nice man from Frehaug.”

Fosse was nominated for the Nobel Prize for the first time in 2001. Since then, he has been among the favorites every year. In 2005, the Bergens Tidende newspaper was convinced that Vosse’s turn had finally come, but no. In 2013, British bookmakers had to stop betting on Fosse because there was a sudden wave of high-value bets, but the writer again failed to win the prize.

There are also oppositionists who believe that Fosse should not have received the prize. The head of the cultural department of the Swedish newspaper Expressen, Victor Malm, believes that the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the wrong Norwegian and that Dag Sulstad should have received it: “Fosse is not boring, but if you contrast him with his truly witty compatriot Sulstad, “my” Nobel candidate award, you will see something less original and more general. I have nothing against Foss. Simply, Sulstad’s view of the historical experience of the Scandinavian welfare state has no parallel in the world literature.”

Scandinavian expert and writer Natalia Budur talks in a commentary to MK about the peculiarities of choosing the Nobel Prize winner this year: “Norway is rejoicing, and this is not surprising. In a tiny country with a population of 5.5 million people, the fourth laureate in the field of literature “happened”! This is a very significant event for a country that has long and persistently revived its traditions and pays special attention to its languages.

Norway has two official language forms, which are essentially two equal languages. These are bookish – bokmaal (based on the language of the times of union with Denmark) and New Norwegian -nynorsk (“constructed” on the basis of dialects). Absolutely all Norwegians understand Bokmål, most foreigners learn it, but Nynorsk causes certain difficulties in understanding, even among native speakers. Therefore, Fosse admitted that this was not his award, but the Nynorsk Prize.

The current laureate is a novelist, translator, and author of children’s books, but his plays are most famous; it is not without reason that he is rightfully considered the most sought-after contemporary playwright in the world. His dramas (including his debut in 1994) almost immediately begin their tour of world stages. Very often his works are connected by common plot lines. But in Fosse’s plays the main thing is dialogue, the essence of any drama, while this dialogue, according to the consensus of critics, is “minimalistic”, and pauses often come to the fore in conveying meanings. In Fosse’s texts, there are quite often people without names, designated simply as Woman, Man, Other Man, which, along with the limited but absolutely realistic props and the scenography worked out by the author, gives the works anonymity and the universality of the text.

Fosse has been compared to Samuel Beckett and Thomas Bernhard, but where Bernhard created masque theater with a political agenda, and Beckett staged the action outside of rational ideas, Fosse presents individual scenes as x-rays of everyday life.”