The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded on October 5 to the Norwegian novelist and playwright Jon Fosse “for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable.”
Fosse’s work has long been lauded throughout continental Europe, but he has recently found a growing audience in the English-speaking world. By receiving what is widely seen as the most prestigious prize in literature, the author joins a list of laureates including Toni Morrison, Kazuo Ishiguro and Annie Ernaux.
Critics have long compared Fosse’s sparse plays to the work of two previous Nobel laureates: Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett. And he had long been tipped to win. In 2013, British bookmakers temporarily suspended betting on the prize after a flurry of bets on Fosse’s winning. In the end, the action proved unnecessary, as Alice Munro, the Canadian short story writer, took the award.
Along with the prestige and a huge boost in book sales, Fosse received 11 mn Swedish krona, about $991,000.
In recent years, the Swedish Academy, which organizes the prize, has tried to increase the diversity of considered authors after facing criticism that only 17 Nobel laureates had been women and that the vast majority were from Europe or North America. The choice of Fosse is likely to be interpreted as a step back from those efforts.
Before the October 5th announcement, at a news conference in Stockholm, Fosse was among the favourites, although Can Xue, a Chinese writer of often surreal and experimental short stories was also tipped, as were Haruki Murakami; Gerald Murnane, a reclusive Australian author; and Laszlo Krasznahorkai, a Hungarian author who Susan Sontag once called a “master of the apocalypse.”
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