Boathouse

Jon Fosse The Nobel Prize

Original title: Naustet
Publisher: Samlaget, 1989
Genre: Novel
Pages: 126 pages

One of Jon Fosse’s most acclaimed novels, Boathouse is told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator leading a largely hermit-like existence until he unexpectedly encounters a long-lost childhood friend and his wife. Told partially in a stream-of-consciousness style and with an atmosphere reminiscent of a gripping crime novel, Boathouse slowly unravels the story of a love triangle leading to jealousy, betrayal, and eventually death.

Foreign rights

Basque: Elkar Argitaletxeak
Belarusian: Technalohija Publisher
Brazilian Portuguese: Editora Fosforo
Danish: Batzer & Co
English: Dalkey Archive/Deep Vellum/Fitzcarraldo
Estonian: Eesti Raamat
French: Editions Circé
Icelandic: Dimma
Portuguese (PT): Cavalo de Ferro
South Korean: Saeum Publishing Company
Slovakian: Modrý Peter
Slovenian: Goga
Spanish: Random House
Swedish: Bonniers
Turkish: Monokl
Vietnamese: Thời Độ

It is not necessarily the exterior, expansive drama that comes to determine our lives. Rather, it is the subtle, seemingly banal, and perhaps chance occurrences, that strikes us with consequences impossible to foresee or comprehend in dimension. Fosse convinces us of this, and it gives the novel unsettling perspectives.

Dagbladet

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.