By DAVID KEYTON, MIKE CORDER and JILL LAWLESS (Associated Press)
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Norwegian author Jon Fosse, whose work tackles delivery, demise, religion and the opposite “elemental stuff” of life in spare Nordic prose, gained the Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday for writing that prize organizers stated provides “voice to the unsayable.”
The novelist and playwright stated the prize was recognition of “literature that first and foremost aims to be literature, without other considerations” — an ethos expressed in dozens of enigmatic performs, tales and novels, together with a seven-book epic made up of a single sentence.
Fosse’s work, rooted in his Norwegian background, “focuses on human insecurity and anxiety,” Anders Olsson, chair of the Nobel literature committee, informed The Associated Press. “The basic choices you make in life, very elemental stuff.”
One of his nation’s most-performed dramatists, Fosse stated he had “cautiously prepared” himself for a decade to obtain the information that he had gained.
“I was surprised when they called, yet at the same time not,” the 64-year-old informed Norwegian public broadcaster NRK. “It was a great joy for me to get the phone call.”
The creator of 40 performs in addition to novels, brief tales, youngsters’s books, poetry and essays, Fosse was honored “for his innovative plays and prose, which give voice to the unsayable,” in response to the Swedish Academy, which awards the prize.
Fosse has cited the grim, enigmatic work of Irish author Samuel Beckett — the 1969 Nobel literature laureate — as an affect on his sparse, minimalist type.
Edmund Austigard, govt officer of Fosse’s writer, Samlaget, stated the creator described his work as “slow writing and reading literature.”
“It’s not a type of literature that you bring to the beach and read in an hour or two,” he stated. “It’s a type of literature … that invites you into a unique world and invites you to stay there for a while.”
While Fosse is the fourth Norwegian author to get the literature prize, he’s the primary in almost a century and the primary who writes in Nynorsk, one of many two official written variations of the Norwegian language. It is utilized by simply 10% of the nation’s 5.4 million individuals, in response to the Language Council of Norway, however fully comprehensible to customers of the opposite written type, Bokmaal.
Guy Puzey, senior lecturer in Scandinavian Studies on the University of Edinburgh, stated Bokmaal is “the language of power, it’s the language of urban centers, of the press.” Nynorsk, against this, is used primarily by individuals in rural western Norway.
“So it’s a really big day for a minority language,” Puzey stated.
Norway’ tradition minister, Lubna Jaffery, informed information company NTB that it was “a historic day for the Nynorsk language and Nynorsk literature.”
Norway’s Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson obtained the prize in 1903, Knut Hamsun was awarded it in 1920 and Sigrid Undset in 1928.
In recognition of his contribution to Norwegian tradition, in 2011 Fosse was granted use of an honorary residence within the grounds of the Royal Palace.
His first novel, “Red, Black,” was revealed in 1983, and his debut play, “Someone is Going to Come,” in 1992.
His work “A New Name: Septology VI-VII” — described by Olsson as Fosse’s magnum opus — was a finalist for the International Booker Prize in 2022. The last quantity in a seven-novel exploration of life, demise and spirituality incorporates no sentence breaks.
His different main prose works embody “Melancholy;” “Morning and Evening,” whose two elements depict a delivery and a demise; “Wakefulness;” and “Olav’s Dreams.”
His performs, which have been staged throughout Europe and within the United States, embody “The Name,” “Dream of Autumn” and “I am the Wind.”
Fosse has additionally taught writing — one in all his college students was best-selling Norwegian novelist Karl Ove Knausgaard — and consulted on a Norwegian translation of the Bible.
Mats Malm, everlasting secretary of the academy, reached Fosse by phone to tell him of the win. He stated the author, who lives within the western metropolis of Bergen, was driving within the countryside and promised to drive dwelling rigorously.
“I stand here and feel a little numb, but of course very happy for the great honor,” Fosse informed Norway’s TV2.
The Nobel Prizes carry a money award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million) from a bequest left by their creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. Winners additionally obtain an 18-carat gold medal and diploma on the award ceremonies in December.
Though his books have been translated into dozens of languages and his performs produced all over the world, Fosse is what some critics may see as a basic, secure Nobel alternative: A intellectual European man with little title recognition past small literary circles.
The prize has lengthy confronted criticism that it’s too targeted on European and North American writers of style-heavy, story-light prose. It’s additionally male-dominated, with simply 17 girls amongst its 119 laureates, together with final 12 months’s winner French creator Annie Ernaux.
Others level out that the prize has gone in recent times to a robust mixture of authors with each crucial acclaim and strong gross sales, similar to Kazuo Ishiguro, Mario Vargas Llosa and Alice Munro. And probably the most populist alternative by the committee – 2016 laureate Bob Dylan – additionally sparked loads of controversy and debate about whether or not his lyrics rose to the extent of literature.
Publisher Austigard stated Fosse’s gradual prose might be “ just what we need and just what people are looking for” in a frenetic world.
“It’s birth, it’s love, it’s death. It’s about what it means to be a human being.”
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Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands, and Lawless from London. Associated Press author Jan M. Olsen contributed from Copenhagen.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com”