The Name

Jon Fosse

Original title: Namnet
Publisher: Samlaget, 1995
Genre: Play

In this award-winning play, we meet a young couple expecting a child. They are homeless and on their way to the girl’s parents house. The Name is a play about the difficulties we have understanding one another and the longing for a significant other who cares about oneself. By placing seemingly simple characters in critical moments, Fosse’s communicates the common, yet crucial aspects about the modern human condition.

“Fosse has influenced our way of thinking just as Samuel Beckett once did.” Randolf Walderhaug (Director)

The Name is Fosse’s second play, originally written in 1995.

Foreign rights

French, Portuguese, Czech, Swedish, Romanian, German, Hungarian, Korean, Latvian, Slovakian.

Awards

Ibsenprisen, 1996.

Jon Fosse

Photo: Tom A. Kolstad

Jon Fosse is widely considered one of the world’s most important living writers. Born in 1959 in Strandebarm, a small village in the western part of Norway, he lives today in the Grotten, an honorary residence, as well as in Hainburg, Austria, and Frekhaug, Norway.

Fosse has received numerous prizes, both in Norway and internationally, and he is mentioned increasingly often as a likely contender for the Nobel Prize. He has currently finished a major seven-volume work of what he calls “slow prose”. Septology consists of three volumes: The Other Name: Septology I – II was published in 2019 to international praise and longlisted for the Booker International Prize. I Is Another: Septology III – V was published autumn 2020 and A New Name: Septology VI – VII in September 2021.