Jon Fosse wins the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature

Norwegian author Jon Fosse won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature “for his innovative plays and prose that give voice to the ineffable,” the Swedish Academy announced today in Stockholm.

The Nobel Prize in Literature is the fourth in the round of these prestigious awards, after the Medicine, Physics and Chemistry prizes were announced in previous days and on the eve of the Peace Prize being announced this Friday.

According to the Academy, this year’s winner has developed a style that has come to be known as “Fosse minimalism,” seen for example in his second novel, “Steng gitar” (1985), in which he makes variations on its central themes, such as that of the critical moment of indecision.

In that work, a mother leaves her apartment to throw out the trash, but she stays outside with her baby inside, and she does not dare to seek help because she does not want to leave him.

According to the academy, Fosse’s work presents us with a world similar to that of Kafka’s work with the difference that it appears in situations that are typical of our daily lives.

In addition to Kafka, the Academy sees other authors related to Fosse’s work such as the Irishman Samuel Becket, one of the greatest exponents of the theater of the absurd, or the German poet Georg Trakl.

With information from EFE