Jon Fosse awarded Nobel Prize for Literature 2023

Credit: Tom A. Kolstad/Det norske samlaget (wikicommons)

07 October:  Acclaimed writer Jon Fosse is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature 2023 “for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable”. 

"The PEN family congratules Jon Fosse for this prestigious award. Fosse's Nobel Prize in Literature is a testament to the profound impact of his minimalist prose, exploring the depths of the human soul in a noisy world. His work reminds us of literature's power to bridge cultures and shed light on our shared humanity," said Burhan Sonmez, PEN International President

Fosse is renowned for his contributions to contemporary literature and theatre, and particularly for his distinctive style of writing and his exploration of existential and psychological themes in his works. “I am overwhelmed, and somewhat frightened. I see this as an award to the literature that first and foremost aims to be literature, without other considerations,” Fosse said following the award.

Announced by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, Sweden, the Nobel Prize for Literature is the most prestigious literature award in the world, with the winner receiving 10.0 million Swedish kronor (£1million). It will be formally awarded late in 2023.

Among the nominees for this year’s prize were acclaimed authors and PEN’s friends: Homero Aridjis (former PEN International President), Margaret Atwood (PEN International Vice-President), Anne Carson (recipient of the 2021 PEN/Nabokov Award), Joyce Carol Oates (recipient of the PEN/Malamud Award), Salman Rushdie (former PEN America President), Elena Poniatowska (PEN International Vice-President), Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (PEN International Vice-President), and Lyudmilla Ulitskaya (member of PEN Moscow).

French writer Annie Ernaux won the Nobel Prize for Literature 2022 for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory.

Previous winners include PEN International’s first President John Galsworthy, PEN International Vice-Presidents Svetlana Alexievich, John M. Coetzee and Orhan Pamuk, former PEN International President Mario Vargas Llosa, as well as acclaimed authors Ivo Andrić, Grazia Deledda, Bob Dylan, Yasunari Kawabata, Doris Lessing, Naguib Mahfouz, Günter Grass, Toni Morrison, Pablo Neruda, José Saramago, Wole Soyinka and Rabindranath Tagore, among others.

Notes to editors

• For further information, please contact Sabrina Tucci, Communications and Campaigns Manager, Sabrina.Tucci@pen-international.org