Jon Fosse discusses winning the Nobel Prize for literature, including arguing that John Ashbery should have received it. The original Interview, by Sara Ricotta Voza, appeared in Tuttolibri, October 2022.
Jon Fosse, the Nobel, cigarettes and that criticism of Dario Fo and Bob Dylan: “Awarding them was a mistake”
October 6, 2023
The 2023 Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to Jon Fosse. In his last interview with Tuttolibri, published in 2022, he delved into his life and his works. We’re republishing it
In the small arctic world of Jon Fosse’s latest book, the fisherman’s life is hard, either there are no crabs or there is no one who wants to buy them. The protagonist speaks little, smokes a lot and thinks a lot, great conversations to himself, or with his wife who is no longer there, or with his friend who is a fisherman like him. And it was evening and it was morning, first day. There is some of the simple and powerful language of Genesis in this almost biblical tale of a beginning and an end, a birth and a death, of the same man. Where everything is very clear, evil exists because God “was disturbed in creating him”, and Satan continues to disturb every time “a violin player plays well”.
We are talking about a great writer, described as “the heir of Ibsen and Beckett”, “the most represented Norwegian playwright in the world“, and obviously, “several times nominated for the Nobel”.
But the most curious thing – we are not used to it, we only remember certain honors from the times of enlightened Roman emperors and Renaissance princes – is that the king of Norway asked him to live in Grotten, the wing of the royal palace in Oslo which from ‘800 is reserved for those who have illustrated the nation for literary merit.
What is it like to live in a house granted “honoris causa” by the king? Can you feel like “home”?
«It is not the king but the minister of culture who decides who lives in Grotten. I don’t know how much the king is involved but I imagine that the formal decision is his. I’m from the western part of Norway, Vestlandet and I didn’t really want to move to the east and Oslo, so even though I felt very honored I hesitated for a long time before accepting. Then when they explained to me that I didn’t necessarily have to stay there all year I said yes. Do I feel like home? No and yes. It belongs to the Norwegian state and its first tenant, our poet Henrik Wegeland, impossible to translate and therefore almost unknown outside Norway. There are also reminiscences of others who lived here. Yet I can feel like my home. I have collected all the books written here, also the translations, the prizes received, statuettes and diplomas, and obviously all the “personal effects” that are needed for living. But I also stay a bit in Vestlandet and in an apartment in Hainburg an der Donau, outside Vienna.”
He has had many Nobel nominations. What effect does it have on you every year?
«I don’t know if I’m a real candidate, but it’s an honor that many people think I deserve it, or at least that they think the Swedish academy thinks I deserve a Nobel Prize. Instead, the thought of being rewarded is terrifying.”
You are very famous as a playwright. What do you think of the Nobel Prizes for Pirandello and Dario Fo?
The one for Pirandello was right, the one for Dario Fo was not. The Nobel should go to a writer and Dario Fo was not. The same goes for Bob Dylan. Giving him the Nobel was wrong. If there was one American to whom he should be given it was John Ashbery. But he died shortly after Dylan received the award.”
Let’s talk about the new novel, Morning and evening. The protagonist Johannes monologues between life and death in the last pages. I read that you had a near-death experience as a child. Is there anything in Johannes’ visions that you saw then?
I had a near-death experience, while Johannes is actually dying. And only the dead man knows what he is like. So it’s just imagination and, for me, literature.
Johannes loves rolling cigarettes, it’s one of life’s little pleasures. For her too?
Once upon a time, most Norwegian men rolled their own cigarettes. I can’t imagine a fisherman who didn’t. But now there are few smokers. I was, and avid, I stopped ten years ago and now I use Swedish snuff which is prohibited in the European Union except in Sweden and Norway.
On old age: Johannes says it’s terrible to get old. Do you think so too?
Johannes is much older than me, he’s in his eighties. I’ll be sixty in the fall. I don’t feel old but I feel like I’m getting older, for better or for worse. Life in general has become better even though I get tired sooner. But the great thing is that now I only worry about what’s important, no longer what isn’t.
On money: Johannes doesn’t want to exchange the stone floor for parquet and rejoices with his friend Peter because by cutting each other’s hair they save a little money. Are people still like this now that Norway has gone from poverty to wealth?
Norway was one of the poorest countries in Europe and has become one of the richest. In Johannes’s day he was still poor, as when I was young. I have had both experiences; of being a poor writer, for many years, and then quite rich. Because my comedies have been and still are performed all over the world.
On faith: you converted to Catholicism. How did it happen?
It was Master Eckhart who influenced my faith and that of my wife. If Eckhart and my wife could be Catholic, I could be Catholic too. But Morning and Evening I wrote it before my conversion, when I could call myself a Quaker even if I was never formally one.
Do you think Christians are under attack?
True Christians have always been under attack. Christianity and mainstream liberal capitalism are opposites. Christianity is a counterculture, at least in Norway. We Norwegian Catholics are only a few thousand, but still an important minority in a very secularized society, even if officially Protestant.”
On art: why, at a certain point, did you choose theatre? Do you prefer to be called a poet, writer or playwright?
I am a writer. I started writing poetry and short stories at 12 years old. I wrote my first published novel at 20, it was called “Red, Black”. I never thought about writing for the theatre, but I said yes to a request, to be honest because I needed the money. But writing my first play was the biggest surprise of my writing life. It was so easy to create the silent language. And from then on I knew that what I was trying to do in my writing was silent language. My first comedy was “Someone Will Come”, still the most performed. Then I wrote mainly for the theater for fifteen years. The strange thing is that when I write prose I also write poetry, which I don’t do when I write plays.
I guess it’s because a comedy for me is very close to poetry. The novel too, but there is more distance. And then I have translated a lot, especially comedies, recently also prose and recently a translation of “Sebastian in Dream” by Georg Trakl was published. But in the future I will focus on my writing. After finishing the two translations I’m working on now, of course.