Jon Fosse

Jon Fosse is a Norwegian author, translator, and playwright born on September 29, 1959, in Haugesund, Norway. Raised by a family of Quakers and Pietists, he studied comparative literature at the University of Bergen and debuted with the novel Raudt, svart (Red, Black) in 1983. His oeuvre spans over seventy novels, poems, essays, children's books, and plays, primarily written in Nynorsk and translated into over fifty languages. Fosse's minimalist, introspective style draws from Samuel Beckett, Tarjei Vesaas, and Henrik Ibsen, blending lyrical prose, poetry, and post-dramatic theatre. Notable works include the Septology series (The Other Name, I Is Another, A New Name) and plays such as Someone Is Going to Come and Nightsongs. His first play premiered in 1994, establishing him as the most performed Norwegian playwright after Ibsen. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2023 'for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable,' becoming the first Nynorsk writer and fourth Norwegian Nobel literature laureate. He converted to Catholicism in 2012.