This year’s Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to the Norwegian writer Jon Fosse. Like many recent European Nobel literature laureates, Fosse is not a particularly familiar name in the UK, although his work has been translated into English, especially in recent years. His plays have also been performed here, although not with the regularity or success that they have enjoyed in French- and German-speaking Europe.

Jon Fosse in 2020. Image from Wikimedia Commons 

Fosse has been talked about as a possible Nobel winner before. In 2013 bookmakers briefly suspended betting on the outcome of the prize when Fosse’s odds suddenly shortened. In the event, the prize went to Alice Munro. In an interview with The Guardian the following year, Fosse claimed that not winning had been something of a relief, explaining, “Normally, they give it to very old writers, and there's a wisdom to that – you receive it when it won't affect your writing.”

Ten years on from that interview, however, Fosse’s turn for the Nobel award has come, his writing clearly unaffected by the many other major Norwegian and European literary prizes that he has already won. The Nobel citation describes the award as being “for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable” and the jury commended Fosse on his “powerful, demanding and innovative way of writing in every literary genre”.

Born in 1959 in the south-western Norwegian town of Haugesund, Fosse studied at the University of Bergen and published his first novel, Raudt, Svart (‘Red, Black’; X.950/40748) in 1983. 1994 saw the premiere of his first play Og aldri skal vi skiljast (‘And We’ll Never be Parted’; YA.1995.a.10390), and in the following years Fosse became perhaps best known – especially outside Norway – primarily as a dramatist. However, he continued to write novels, as well as essays, poetry and children’s books, and has also translated fiction, drama and poetry from English, German and French.

As an internationally-acclaimed Norwegian playwright, Fosse has inevitably been compared with Henrik Ibsen, but his work has more in common with that of Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter – both of whose work Fosse has translated. It may come as a surprise to discover that Fosse has also in fact translated Ibsen. Fosse writes in Nynorsk, one of the two standard versions of the Norwegian language and in 2018 published a Nynorsk translation of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt. Nynorsk is commonly used by only 10-15% of the Norwegian population, so Fosse’s choice to make it the language of his considerable and much-awarded body of work is an important one linguistically and politically. His Nobel Prize is one of the few awarded to a writer who works in what can be termed a ‘minority language’.

Cover of Fosse's translation of Peer Gynt into Nynorsk (Oslo, 2018; YF.2019.a.3404)

Apart from titles by Fosse in both variants of Norwegian, we hold translations of his works, as well as commentaries and analyses in French, German, Danish, Swedish and Hungarian. Norwegian Bokmål is best represented with 59 titles, spanning his whole career and all genres. English translations of Fosse’s works include his masterpiece Septologien (Septology), a novel in seven parts, translated by Damion Searls and published in three volumes, each with their own title: Vols I-II The Other Name (2019; ELD.DS.698283), vols III-V I Is Another (2020; ELD.DS.674395) and vols VI-VII A New Name (2021; ELD.DS.645346). All three translations were published in a single volume in 2022. Septology is an epic story about the nature of art and God, alcoholism (Fosse has struggled with alcohol addiction), friendship, love and the passing of time. In 2022 the translation of volumes VI-VII  was nominated for the International Booker Prize. What is most remarkable about it is that it is written in a single sentence!

Cover of Septology I-VII (London, 2022) ELD.DS.756035

A number of recordings of performances of his plays are held in our Sound and Vision collections, for example Rêves d’automne (a French translation of Draum om hausten), directed by Patrice Chéreau, which was performed at Rennes in 2011. A recording issued in 2013 is held at 1DVD0010010. Productions of Fosse’s plays in Romania (Rêves d’automne amongst them) are discussed alongside interviews with Fosse in a French-language study La scène roumaine.

Scene from Rêves d’automne, reproduced in La scène roumaine: les défis de la liberté (Brussels, 2010) LF.31.b.10691.

In German we hold a study score of the opera Morgen und Abend (‘Morning and Evening’) by Georg Friedrich Haas, with a libretto by Fosse, translated by Hinrich Schmidt-Henkel. It was a combined commission by the Royal Opera in London and the Deutsche Oper in Berlin and is on based on Fosse’s novella of the same title, Morgon og kveld (Oslo, 2000; YA.2002.a.11394). 

All these and more are available in our reading rooms – accessible with a free reader’s pass, six days a week. Fosse’s Nobel Prize will no doubt help to swell the body of translations of his work and of and secondary literature. We will continue to acquire these for our collections, as well of course as Fosse’s work in the original Nynorsk.

Susan Reed and Marja Kingma, Germanic Collections Curators

Cover of Fosse’s most recent work, Kvitleik (Oslo, 2023) YF.2023.a.21631