Norwegian Jon Fosse wins Nobel Prize in Literature

1. Norwegian Jon Fosse, 64, wins the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature
2. The Swedish Academy in Stockholm praised his innovative plays and prose, saying he gave voice to the unsayable
3. The prize is awarded for a body of work, rather than a single item - there is no shortlist and it is notoriously difficult to predict
4. Fosse's major works include the novels "Boathouse" (1989) and "Melancholy" I and II (1995-1996)
5. Previous winners include Toni Morrison, Doris Lessing, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Bob Dylan
6. You can watch our coverage by pressing play at the top of the page

What's been happening?

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We're ending our live coverage soon - thank you for reading.

It has been a joint effort by Nadia Ragozhina, George Wright, Emily Atkinson and Paul Gribben.

Here's a round-up of what's been happening in Stockholm today.

• Norwegian Jon Fosse has won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature
• The Swedish Academy in Stockholm praised his innovative plays and prose and said he gave voice to the unsayable
• Fosse said he was "overwhelmed and somewhat frightened" at getting the prestigious award
• The 64-year-old's major works include the novels "Boathouse" (1989) and "Melancholy" I and II (1995-1996)
• Norwegian PM Jonas Gahr Støre said the whole country '"is proud today"

'No thanks’ - who turned down an award?

In 1958, Soviet writer Boris Pasternak was awarded the prize for his novel Doctor Zhivago, which had been published in Italy the previous year but not at home. His award angered the Soviet authorities so much (the state-controlled media called it an "artistically squalid, malicious work") that he was forced to turn it down.

In 1964, French writer Jean-Paul Sartre refused the prize. Archives opened in 2015 revealed that he had written a letter informing the Swedish Academy of his intention to decline the prize, were it to be offered to him, but the letter arrived after the jury had already made its decision.

He later said he didn’t want to accept as he had always refused all official honours in the past.

Fosse writes in Nynorsk - but what is it?

We've said earlier that Fosse writes in Nynorsk - one of Norway's two versions of the Norwegian language.

This is what it means.

Modern Norwegian consists of two written forms: Nynorsk, literally the new Norwegian, and Bokmål, the book language.

Until 1814, Danish was the standard written language used in Norway. After Norway declared its independence from Denmark, the name of the Danish language in Norway became a hot topic of debate throughout the 19th century.

It was during that time that Nynorsk was formulated by Ivar Aasen - a botanist and self-taught linguist, who travelled around the country to collect words and examples of grammar from different dialects in different regions. Eventually, Nynorsk was born and is now used mainly in the west of the country, and by roughly by 10% of the population.

Bokmål developed from Danish-Norwegian which was the elite language after the union of Denmark and Norway in the 16th and 17th centuries and is much more commonly used in Norway today. According to some estimates, it is the written standard of 85-90% of Norwegians.

Who said winning the prize was 'a bloody disaster'?

Another look at previous famous winners

• 2013 Alice Munro

Canadian author Alice Munro won the award for being a “master of the contemporary short story”. The Swedish Academy said they hadn’t been able to contact her ahead of the announcement so they left a message on her answering machine, informing her of her win.

Often compared to Anton Chekhov, she is known for writing about the human spirit and a regular theme of her work is the dilemma faced by young girls growing up and coming to terms with living in a small town.

• 2007 Doris Lessing

British-Zimbabwean author Doris Lessing said winning the award had been a “bloody disaster”. The increased media interest in her had meant that writing a full novel was next to impossible, she told the BBC the year after winning.

The Swedish Academy described Lessing as an "epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny".

She became the oldest winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature when in 2007 she won the award for her life's work aged 88. Her best known works include The Golden Notebook and The Good Terrorist.

Jeff Overs / BBC

• 1993 Toni Morrison

When American writer Toni Morrison (above) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the academy described her as an author "who in novels characterised by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality”. Her 1987 book Beloved told the story of a runaway female slave and was made into a film starring Oprah Winfrey in 1998.

Professor Noliwe Rooks told the BBC her debut novel, whose protagonist was a young black girl, had broken new ground when it was released in 1970.

"At this moment when [The Bluest Eye] comes out - who's writing about black girls? Who's writing about this kind of trauma? Who's writing about the interior lives of someone like that? Who's writing about black communities?" said Rooks.

Can you name other Nobel winners?

Here's a look at some of the previous winners of the literature prize.

• 2017 Kazuo Ishiguro

The Japanese-born British writer was praised by the Swedish Academy as someone "who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world".

His most famous novels The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go were adapted into highly acclaimed films.

In a curious twist, when contacted by the BBC for a comment, Ishiguro admitted he hadn't heard from the Nobel committee and wasn't sure whether it was a hoax - you can watch the moment the BBC called the author here.

Dave J Hogan/Getty Images

• 2016 Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan became the first songwriter to win the award. He received the prize "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition". Dylan at first failed to acknowledge his prize, with a member of the Swedish Academy calling him “impolite and arrogant”.

The artist took his stage name from Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and had long been tipped as a potential prize recipient. Few experts, though, expected the academy to give the award to a genre such as folk or rock music. One BBC writer said the decision false“elevates song lyrics to being on a critical par with literature, poetry and playwriting”.

• 2015 Svetlana Alexievich

Announcing the Belorussian writer as the winner of the award, then-Swedish Academy chair, Sara Danius, called her writing“ a monument of courage and suffering in our time”.

The best-known works of Alexievich in English translation include Voices from Chernobyl, an oral history of the 1986 nuclear catastrophe, and Zinky Boys, a collection of first-hand accounts from the Soviet-Afghan war. The title refers to the zinc coffins in which the dead came home.

Who is Jon Fosse?

Agnete Brun

So, there we have it, Jon Fosse has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

He is known, and revered, for his revelatory use of form, simple language and silence.

"What's not being said is more important than what's being said," he told French paper Le Monde in 2023 - inviting comparisons to playwright Henrik Ibsen, a master of the unsaid.

The AFP news agency reports that Fosse was born in 1959 on the west coast of Norway to a family which followed a strict form of Lutheranism.

The author is said to have rebelled by playing in a band and declaring himself an atheist. At 64 years old, he converted to Catholicism.

He made his literary debut in 1983 with the novel Red, Black. Other major works including Boathouse (1989), Melancholy I and II (1995-1996) and his latest book, Septology were to follow.

Fosse was married three times and fathered six children. He gave up alcohol after being treated in hospital for alcohol poisoning.

After a 10-year hiatus, he returned with a new piece for the theatre entitled Sterk Vind (Strong Wind).

Writer of a seven-part book... without a single full stop

Charlotte Gallagher

BBC Culture reporter

Jon Fosse began writing stories as a child, with his breakthrough novel, Boathouse, published in 1989.

Having established himself as a novelist, poet and children's author - he then turned his attention to plays.

Namnet - which was first staged in 1995 - remains one of his most performed works.

It tells a claustrophobic story about a pregnant woman returning to her family home with the reluctant father-to-be in tow.

His sparse, Pinteresque style brought him to international attention, though commercial success has eluded him in the UK.

Fosse was nominated for the Booker Prize, won the Ibsen Prize and was awarded the French Order of Merit in 2007.

He has said he is "overwhelmed and somewhat frightened" at becoming a Nobel Laureate.

His latest book, "Septology", a semi-autobiographical magnum opus – is in seven parts spread across three volumes. It runs to 1,250 pages. Without a single full stop.

'He touches you so deeply'

More now from Nobel committee chairman Anders Olsson on Jon Fosse, who he describes as "a fantastic writer in many ways".

"What is special with him is the closeness in his writing. It touches on the deepest feelings that you have - anxieties, insecurities, questions of life and death - such things that every human being actually confronts from the very beginning.

"In that sense I think he reaches very far and there is a sort of a universal impact of everything that he writes. And it doesn't matter if it is drama, poetry or prose - it has the same kind of appeal to this basic humanness."

For those not familiar with Fosse and don't know where to start, all his plays are "extremely readable", Olsson said.

Of his prose, 2000 novella Morning and Evening is "a wonderful little piece" - and his Septology, a seven-novel sequence, is "fantastic".

He touches you so deeply when you read him, and when you have read one work you have to continue

Nobel committee chairman Anders Olsson

Who was the last Norwegian to win?

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Sigrid Undset won the award in 1928

Jon Fosse is the first Norwegian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature since 1928.

Sigrid Undset won the award then "principally for her powerful descriptions of Northern life during the Middle Ages".

Undset wrote novels, short stories, and essays.

In her earlier years she wrote about strong, contemporary women struggling for emancipation before later focusing on the Middle Ages.

Her best known work is Kristin Lavransdatter, which deals with themes of honour, religious faith, and the common life shared by women and men in 15th-century Norway.

"With solid historical knowledge, deep psychological insight, a vivid imagination, and a vigorous language, Undset brings to life both communities and individuals," the Nobel Prize website says.

She later fled Nazi-occupied Norway to the US where she continued to write about her war-torn country.

'I have carefully prepared...for the last decade'

Speaking to Norwegian state broadcaster, NRK, Jon Fosse says he was surprised when he got the call about his win... but at the same time said that he wasn't!

I have carefully prepared myself mentally for the last decade that this might happen. It was a great pleasure to receive the call!"

Jon Fosse

Norwegian PM says whole country 'is proud today!'

Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre has been quick to pay tribute.

On X, formerly Twitter, he writes:

"The Nobel Prize in Literature to Jon Fosse! A great recognition of a unique authorship that makes an impression and touches people all over the world. All of Norway congratulates and is proud today!"

Praise for Jon Fosse's early work

Nobel committee chairman Anders Olsson has been talking about Fosse's work and how his first play - 'Someone Is Going to Come' (Nokon kjem til å komme) - (his international breakthrough in 1998) - reflected the writer's distinctiveness.

Even in this early piece, with its themes of fearful anticipation and crippling jealousy, Fosse's singularity is fully evident. In his radical reduction of language and dramatic action he exposes human anxiety and ambivalence at its core."

Anders Olsson, chairman of the Nobel committee

Who is Jon Fosse?

Born in 1959, his works span 40 plays, a wealth of novels, essays, children's books and translations.

He is also one of the most recognised and widely performed playwrights.

In the words of the Swedish Academy, he "blends the nature of his Norwegian background with artistic technique" and is commended for "exposing human anxiety and ambivalence at its core" in his works.

“His immense oeuvre, written in Norwegian Nynorsk and spanning a variety of genres, consists of a wealth of plays, novels, poetry collections, essays, children’s books and translations. While he is today one of the most widely performed playwrights in the world, he has also become increasingly recognised for his prose.”

Swedish Academy

Fosse 'somewhat frightened' at award

Jon Fosse says he is "overwhelmed and somewhat frightened" at getting the prestigious award.

'Dialogue ebbs and flows like inconclusive waves'

EPA

Jon Fosse, pictured in 2019

Alan Davey, former controller of BBC Radio 3, wrote a blog in 2020 when the station presented a new production of one his works, I Am The Wind.

"Writing in Nynorsk, a spare form of Norwegian with a relatively small number of words, his characters live in abstract, poetic worlds characterised by cold, harsh internal and external reality.

"Like the Icelandic sagas the characters speak little, and description of external surroundings is spare."

Davey added: "Characters begin sentences and don’t finish, dialogue ebbs and flows like inconclusive waves as fears of revealing inner feelings make characters hold back.

"It's not like the kind of narrative theatre that is popular in this country, and passions are laid bare by what is not said as much as what is said. It is poetry and abstract music rather than prose that gets the plot done."

BreakingAnd the winner is...

Norwegian Jon Fosse, one of the world’s most performed playwrights - he is already laden with international awards.

The Swedish Academy in Stockholm praised his innovative plays and prose and said he gave voice to the unsayable. His works have been translated into numerous languages around the world.

Not long to go

Do stick with us as we have just a few minutes to go before we learn who has won this year's Nobel Prize in Literature.

You can watch the ceremony coming live from Stockholm at the top of this page.

Quiz answers

And pens down....

Did you get the right answers?

Let's begin.

1. Who said it was a "bloody disaster" after being awarded the prize? Doris Lessing

2. Which writer had to publicly reject the award under pressure from their government? Boris Pasternak was instructed by the Soviet government to reject the prize. He is the author of Doctor Zhivago.

3. Which British prime minister won this particular prize? Winston Churchill.

4. Who was the first woman to win? Selma Lagerlöf of Sweden.

5. Which author only found out he had won after a phone call from the BBC? Kazuo Ishiguro - watch him tell the story of how it happened below.

No prizes for correct answers but you do get to bask in the glory of knowing your stuff.

Kazuo Ishiguro talks to BBC arts editor Will Gompertz in 2017

Could it be Margaret Atwood's time?

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Another writer who could be in with a chance of winning is Canadian poet and novelist Margaret Atwood.

One of the world’s bestselling authors, she has published more than 60 books, including the dystopian classic The Handmaid’s Tale, and won the Booker Prize twice.

Now 83, she is still writing, recently publishing a new collection of short stories, Old Babes In The Woods.

Atwood recently said she believes the first five pages of a book are the most important.

"If you can’t get the reader past the first five pages, your beautiful theory of truth and beauty on page 76 they will never read because they won’t keep going," she told BBC Radio 4.

"Hook me in. Present me with a mystery. Make me want to know more. That’s a good beginning of a book."

Quiz time!

So, pens at the ready... time for a test.

1. Who said it was a "bloody disaster" after being awarded the prize?

2. Which writer had to publicly reject the award under pressure from their government?

3. Which British prime minister won this particular prize?

4. Who was the first woman to win?

5. Which author only found out he had won after a phonecall from the BBC?

Want to impress us with your literary knowledge? Get in touch by emailing the answers to [e-mail] - let us know if you want your comments published here.

We will reveal the answers in 20 minutes or so but remember, it is just a bit of fun - no prizes here, sadly!