Nobel Prize in literature awarded to Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse

The Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to Norwegian author Jon Fosse, The Associated Press reported.

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Fosse was honored “for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable.”

The committee said of Fosse: “His immense oeuvre, written in Norwegian Nynorsk and spanning a variety of genres, consists of a wealth of plays, novels, poetry collections, essays, children’s books and translations. While he is today one of the most widely performed playwrights in the world, he has also become increasingly recognized for his prose.”

Fosse became known after his 1983 novel “Red, Black.” His “A New Name: Septology VI-VII,” the last in a seven-novel sequence, explores an older man’s reckoning with God and was a finalist for the 2022 National Book Awards, The New York Times reported.

Fosse, 64, has produced 40 plays that have been translated into dozens of languages. Several have been performed in New York, including “I Am the Wind” and “Deathvariations” about a couple coming to terms with the death of their daughter, the Times reported.

The committee praised Fosse’s writing style, which has come to be known as “Fosse minimalism.”

“Fosse combines strong local ties, both linguistic and geographic, with modernist artistic techniques,” the committee said.

“While Fosse shares the negative outlook of his predecessors, his particular gnostic vision cannot be said to result in a nihilistic contempt of the world. Indeed, there is great warmth and humor in his work, and a naive vulnerability to his stark images of human experience,” the committee added.

The prize is awarded to “the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction,” according to the 1895 will of Alfred Nobel. The prize is awarded for a writer’s entire body of work.

The award carries with it a $1 million prize.

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