Saturday, October 28, 2023

Jon Fosse: the writer of silence

  The Nobel Prize in Literature goes to ... Jon Fosse 


       They've announced the winner of this year's Nobel Prize in Literature, and it is Jon Fosse. He receives the prize: "for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable".

       This isn't too unexpected -- he's been talked about as one of the top contenders for several years. (The first time I notedthat he was in the Nobel mix was in 2013; he was probably already one of the finalists back then.) 
       Several of his works are under review at the complete review:       Dalkey Archive Press have brought out several of his works -- see here -- while Fitzcarraldo Editions have also picked him up and continue their incredible Nobel streak, and Transit Books published his Septology in the US (which I hope to finally get my hands on in full ...); Methuen have published a huge pile of his plays -- they're up to Plays Six ! -- see the full list. 
       See also the useful author page at the Winje Agency. 

       The useful bio-bibliography shows just how large his output is -- and well worth noting is that he has also translated a great deal (see under 'Other'), including the works of three previous laureates, Handke, Pinter, and Beckett. 
       Like Handke (another big translator) and Jelinek among recent laureates, Fosse is also widely considered a major playwright -- but, like Handke and Jelinek, it's his fiction rather than his plays that have gotten much more attention in the US. (Fosse also has a flat in Austria, where he apparently wrote most of Septology .....) 

       At the Booker Prize site you can learn What's on my bookshelf: Jon Fosse 

       Merve Emre profiled the author in a timely piece at The New Yorker less than a year ago, in Jon Fosse's Search for Peace, while at the Los Angeles review of Books Remo Verdickt and Emiel Roothooft had A Second, Silent Language: A Conversation with Jon Fosse last year. Going back a bit, at Music & Literature Cecilie Seiness had A Conversation with Jon Fosse in 2019. 

       At the Literary Hub, there's also Karl Ove Knausgaard on the Writing of Jon Fosse -- published "Just in Time for Nobel Season" (even if that was in 2019 ...). 

       At The Paris Review's The Daily Damion Searls wrote, nearly a decade ago, on translating Jon Fosse from Norwegian, in Pure Prose. 

       Not sure how helpful this sort of thing is, but for those wondering:       Most of the overview articles are still pretty limited -- sometimes framed to the local audiences, as with the Playbillreport by Meg Masseron, Playwright Jon Fosse Wins Nobel Prize for Literature -- but see, for example:       For discussion of the prize(-winner), check out the Nobel Prize in Literature 2023 thread at the World Literature Forum. 


       Nobel Prize reactions 


       Yesterday's post on Jon Fosse being named this year's Nobel Prize in Literature laureate covers the link-basics, but more pieces are sure to follow in the coming days, so I'll post a list here which I'll be updating as they do:
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