Jon Fosse, a Norwegian playwright and author, was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday, with the Swedish Academy citing his “innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable.”
Since his debut novel “Red, Black” was published in 1983, Fosse has written poems, essays, children’s books, plays and novels. His longest work to date is the critically acclaimed “Septology,” a sequence of novels spanning 1,250 pages of prose that follow the journey of an aging artist grappling with the divine and the passage of time.
“While he is today one of the most widely performed playwrights in the world, he has also become increasingly recognised for his prose,” the Swedish Academy said after the award was announced.
Fosse, 64, grew up in the Hardanger region in the western part of Norway and studied literature at the University of Bergen. He considered a short story he wrote called “He,” which was published in a student newspaper, his actual literary debut.
Widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the modern era, Fosse’s work has been translated into more than 50 languages.
"I am overwhelmed, and somewhat frightened. I see this as an award to the literature that first and foremost aims to be literature, without other considerations,” Fosse said in a statement.
Fosse joins a long list of winners dominated by male writers, for which the academy has frequently come under criticism — only 17 women have received the nod for literature.
Last year, French author Annie Ernaux won the award “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory,” the Swedish Academy said.
On Wednesday, the Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to U.S.-based chemists Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus, and Alexei Ekimov, for their discovery and development of quantum dots.
Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier won the physics award on Tuesday for work that has “given humanity new tools for exploring the world of electrons inside atoms and molecules,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.
Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman won the medicine prize on Monday for their discoveries related to nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.
The highly anticipated Peace Prize will be awarded on Friday, with the winner of the prize for economic sciences revealed on Monday.
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