Vaim

Jon Fosse The Nobel Prize

Original title: Vaim
Publisher: Samlaget, 2025
Genre: Novel

Vaim is the first of three books about the fictional small town of Vaim: Vaim, Vaim Hotel, and The Vaim Weekly. Each book is about different characters.

As Vaim opens, Jatgeir has come from Vaim to the big city, Bjørgvin, on his boat, Eline. He wants to buy a needle and thread but is cheated – twice. Yet strangely, he finds and comes home with Eline herself, the long-lost love of his teenage years, who has left her husband Frank. The story of this love triangle is a book about little boats and big boats, love and death, passive men and an unusually determined woman. There’s no use trying to argue with Eline.

To be published in Norwegian on September 5th 2025, and in English on October 7th 2025

Foreign rights

Brazilian Portuguese: Companhia das Letras
Catalan: Galaxia Gutenberg
Chinese (simplified): Horizon Books
Croatian: Naklada Ljevak
Danish: Batzer & Co
Dutch: Uitgeverij Oevers
English (UK): Fitzcarraldo
English (North America): Transit Books
German: Rowohlt
Hebrew: Hakibbutz Hameuchad
Hungarian: Kalligram
Italian: La Nave di Teseo
Korean: Munhakdongne
Polish: ArtRage
Portuguese: Cavalo de Ferro
Spanish: Penguin Random House
Swedish: Albert Bonniers

Jon Fosse

Photo: Agnete Brun

Nobel Prize-winner Jon Fosse (b. 1959), is widely considered one of the most important writers of our time. For almost forty years, he has written novels, plays, poems, stories, essays, and children’s books. His award-winning work has been translated into more than fifty languages and his plays have been staged over a thousand times all over the world.

Jon Fosse grew up in Strandebarm, a small village in the western part of Norway, he now lives in the Grotten, an honorary residence in Oslo, as well as in Hainburg, Austria, and Frekhaug, Norway.

Fosse was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2023 and has received numerous prizes, both in Norway and internationally through the years.