The Nobel Prize in Literature was given to a Norwegian for his innovative books: “Giving voice to the inexpressible”

On Thursday, October 5, the Swedish Academy announced the name of the Nobel Prize laureate in literature – the Norwegian writer, poet and playwright Jun Fosse. The wording is “for his innovative plays and prose that give voice to the unspeakable.”

The name of the 64-year-old Norwegian did not appear on the lists of favorites in various forecasts. At the same time, Yun Fosse’s dramas have a reputation as one of the most popular on the world’s stages today.

The writer made his debut in 1983 with the novel “Red, Black”, and as a playwright – with the play “And We Will Never Separate” (1994). Fosse taught literature and studied journalism. Author of several poetry collections, as well as books for children.

While awaiting the verdict from the Swedish Academy, there was a lot of speculation about who would take the prize this year.

The most likely winners included Can Xue, Haruki Murakami, Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie. The favorite was 70-year-old Chinese avant-garde writer Can Xue (real name Deng Xiaohua), who had previously been nominated for the International Booker Prize for her novel Love in the New Millennium, translated by Anneliese Finegan Wasmun, and the collection of short stories I Live in a Slum. .

Following her on the list of favorites is the 74-year-old Japanese writer Murakami, author of the cult novels “Norwegian Wood,” “Kafka on the Shore” and “1Q84.” He was generally considered a possible winner for a long time, and in 2013 he was the favorite, although in the end Alice Munro won.

Among those to whom the authors of the forecasts promised a prize is 84-year-old Gerald Murnane, an Australian novelist.

Also named was 69-year-old Laszlo Krasznahorkai, a Hungarian writer and screenwriter. His novels include Satan’s Tango and The Melancholy of Resistance, and he won the Man Booker International Prize in 2015.

The predictions included the names of such writers as Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Margaret Atwood, Mircea Cartarescu, Pierre Michon, Salman Rushdie and Thomas Pynchon.

According to Alfred Nobel’s will of 1895, the prize is awarded to “the person who will create the most outstanding work in the field of literature in an ideal direction.” This year the prize fund will increase from SEK 10 million to SEK 11 million.

Last year, the French writer Annie Hernault received the Nobel Prize in Literature, with the wording: “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she reveals the roots, alienation and collective limitations of personal memory.”

Between 1901 and 2022, the Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded 115 times. As a rule, a literary award goes to one laureate, although history knows several exceptions when the Nobel Prize is divided among several individuals. Thus, in 1904, the prize was received by the poet from Provence Frederic Mistral and the Spanish playwright José Echegaray y Eizaguirre, in 1917 by the Danes Karl Adolf Gjellerup and Henrik Pontoppidan, in 1966 by the Israeli writer Shmuel Agnon and the German poetess Nelly Sachs, and in 1974 – Eivind Jonson and Harry Martinson from Sweden. Thus, as of last year, the prize was awarded to 119 representatives of literature.

In 2020, the winner of the literary Nobel was the US poet Louise Gluck, awarded “for a poetic voice that with harsh beauty makes individual existence universal.” Gluck became one of sixteen women to receive a Nobel (one of them was Svetlana Alexievich, whose award caused fierce debate). And Doris Lessing, awarded in 2007, who was 88 years old at the time, remains the oldest literature laureate. The youngest literary laureate is still Rudyard Kipling, who received the award at the age of 41 for The Jungle Book.

The literary Nobel is accompanied by a trail of scandals – except that the Peace Prize is ahead according to this dubious criterion. Thus, in 2019, the announcement of the decision of the Swedish Academy on the literary Nobel Prize was very unusual – the winners were announced two years in advance. This is due to the fact that it was previously decided to refuse to award the literature prize for 2018 – but it was promised that the decision on this award would be announced together with the name of the 2019 laureate. So the winner of the 2018 prize was the Polish poet and writer Olga Tokarczuk, and the 2019 laureate was the Austrian writer Peter Handke.

Such shifts were the result of a high-profile scandal that arose due to the #MeToo movement. French photographer Jean-Claude Arnault, associated with the Swedish Academy, was accused of sexual harassment after 18 women accused him of not only molestation, but even rape in November 2017. It would seem, what does Nobel have to do with it? The fact is that Arno’s wife, the Swedish poetess Katarina Frostenson, was for a number of years a member of the academy that awards the literature prize. Moreover, some episodes of harassment on the part of Arno occurred exactly on the premises of the Swedish Academy, and the disgraced “hero-lover” himself described himself as “the nineteenth member of the academy.” In the end, Swedish academics voted to expel Katarina Frostenson from the academy. Arnault, 72, was sentenced by the Stockholm District Court to two years in prison for forcing one of his victims to perform oral sex on him, and a few months later in 2011, raping her while his victim was sleeping.