Shorter Prose

Jon Fosse The Nobel Prize

Original title: Kortare Prosa
Publisher: Samlaget, 2011
Genre: Short prose

Throughout his prolific career Fosse has written three books of short prose: Two Stories (1993), Prose from a Childhood (1994), and Older Shorter Prose (1998), all being a great introduction to Fosse’s authorship. Fosse is one of Norway’s most celebrated authors and playwright, famed for the minimalist and unsettling quality of writing.

The latest compilation of his essays was published by Fitzcarraldo Editions, under the title Scenes from a Childhood, and includes How It Started, Dreamt in Stone, And Then My Dog Will Come Back To Me, and Little Sister. Taken from various sources, these texts demonstrate that the short story is one of the recurrent modes of Fosse’s imagination, and occasions some of his greatest works.

Scenes from a Childhood carries autobiographical hints in the narrative, covering a child’s story from infancy to awkward adolescence. Fosse is able to unearth the moments of childhood that linger longest in the imagination. In And Then My Dog Will Come Back To Me, a haunting and dream-like novella, a dispute between neighbours escalates to an inexorable climax.

Jon Fosse is a major European writer.

Karl Ove Knausgaard, author of “My Struggle”

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.