Jon Fosse wins Nobel Prize in Literature

The University of Bergen congratulates Jon Fosse on the Nobel Prize.

The Swedish Academy awarded the Norwegian author and playwright for his "innovative plays and prose which gives voice to the unsayable". 

Jon Fosse has a major in Comparative Literature from the University of Bergen (UiB). He was appointed honorary doctor at the university in 2015.

Jon Fosse is Norway's foremost writer and poet and for 40 years he has made himself noticed as a highly original and productive writer. In particular, he is known internationally as a playwright, and has consolidated his position as the most important Norwegian playwright since Henrik Ibsen. 

Big day for the university 

Today, the flag has been raised at the university to celebrate the alumnus. 

– This is also a big day for Western Norway, for the culture at the west-coast and the solid, good literature, not to forget the nynorsk-language, says rector Margareth Hagen. 

A great achievement for Norwegian literature 

– This is of course also a great achievement for Norwegian literature in general, for the UiB, Comparative Literature and the writer's community in Bergen, says professor in Comparative Literature, Erik Bjerk Hagen. 

As Fosse studied a major in Comparative Literature at UiB in 1987, Bjerck Hagen believes that the professional environment influenced his further path in his life as a writer. 

– I also see it as a prize for Norwegian fiction, which has maintained a very high level in Fosse's time, which is now getting its natural recognition. It was certainly about time, since it is ninety-five years since Sigrid Undset received the prize, he says.