2023 Nobel Prize in Literature: Jon Fausser is not unpopular, and there is still a chance for the residual snow

Norwegian writer Jørn Fausser, winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature. (Visual China/Photo)

Who is Jon Fosse?

On the eve of the announcement of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature, many readers expected her to win because Chinese writer Zhi Xue ranked first in the relevant odds on the Nicer Odds website. At 19 o'clock on October 5, Beijing time, the winners were announced, and the snow was lost. But this does not mean that the odds are invaluable, in fact, Norwegian author Jon Fosse is in second place on this odds list after Residual Snow. Unlike 2021's winner Gulna, Fausser is not an unpopular candidate.

In the more than 100-year history of the Nobel Prize in Literature, only 17 women writers have won the prize, and 8 of them have won awards in the 21st century, including the American poet Glück in 2020 and the French female writer Erno in 2022. Undoubtedly, the Swedish Academy, which has been questioned by public opinion, is increasingly focusing on outstanding female authors. Therefore, there is still a good chance that Snow will win this award in the future.

Jon Fausser's award message was "his innovative drama and prose that gives voice to the unspeakable". Fausser won the prize, "quite reasonably following the tradition of the Nobel Prize in Literature not forgetting outstanding playwrights, from Maeterlinck, George Bernard Shaw, Beckett, Dario Fo, Pinter, Handke, quite brilliant, even more convincing than the list of novelists." Poet and critic Liao Weitang told Southern Weekend.

Jon Fasser is one of the most prestigious figures in contemporary theatre and a recent Nobel Prize favourite, and his work also includes poetry, fiction, essays, children's literature and translation. Fausser's plays have been brought to stages around the world thousands of times, including "The Girl on the Couch" in China in 2004 and "One Summer Day" at the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center. Fausser once saw his play "Someone Coming" in Shanghai and felt that it was one of the best stage presentations of his work in the world, which became a tribute to Chinese theater and Chinese culture. Fausser has received awards including the Scandinavian National Theatre Award (2002), the Honorable Mention of the Norwegian Arts Council (2003), the Nordic Prize of the Swedish Academy (2007) and the International Ibsen Prize (2010). The work "New Name: Seven-Part 6-7" was shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize. Anders Olsen, chairman of the Nobel Prize Committee for Literature, said his work "touches on your deepest feelings, anxieties, insecurities, questions of life and death."

Born on September 29, 1959 in Haugsunde, on the west coast of Norway, Fausser began his creative career at the age of twelve, calling himself "embarrassingly early." Fauser loved to play guitar and at one point joined a rock band. Translator Zou Lulu believes that "his early musical experiences brought a unique Fausser color and style to his later writing—the strong rhythm and musicality of his dramatic language". Since the late 1970s, Fausser has lived for a long time in Bergen, Norway's second largest city and the country's cultural capital. In recent years, he has also traveled to the south of France and the Austrian towns on the outskirts of Vienna, where Fausser is so energetic that he often starts writing from four or five in the afternoon until nine the next morning. When asked what advice he had for writing, he said, "Write, don't think!" Think before you start writing, think after you're done, but when writing, don't think about anything. ”

Jon Fausser's earliest reading memory is a small book in which a major thinks his town needs a fire truck and builds it with some citizens, which looks more like a child's car made of wood. "I also used wood to make cars when I was a kid." Fauser said. He admired Trakl, Kafka, and Beckett, who was an important object of "resistance" when writing plays.

Fausser uses a rare language, "New Norwegian", which is spoken by only one-tenth of the population even in Norway, which is only a tenth of the population with a population of just over five million. Fortunately, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish speakers can easily understand the new Norwegian. But it was through translation that Fausser's work became known to a wider audience, and his books are now available in more than forty languages. At first he only wanted to write poetry and novels, and in 1993 he was invited to write his first screenplay because of a lack of money.

At present, there are selected plays by Jon Fausser "Someone is Coming" and "Autumn Dream" published by Shanghai Translation Publishing House. Wen Jing will soon publish one of Fausser's masterpieces, Trilogy, which won the Nordic Council Literary Prize in 2015, showing his cold, solemn and concise epic style. The novel contains three parts that are tightly linked: "Waking Up", "Olaf's Dream" and "Tiredness". The story begins when young lovers, Asle and Alida, leave their hometown for Björgwen (Bergen), and Alida is about to give birth but the couple struggles to find a place to live. They later found a place to live and gave birth to their son, Sigwald, who began to adopt different names Olav and Åsta. But someone recognized Assler and knew very well that Azler and Alida appeared to have murder on their backs, although Azler may have done it out of desperation. Eventually Asler was hanged. In the final part, the story time advances to the life of Ales, the daughter of Asler and Alida, who is already an old woman who recalls her sister who died early and her brother Sigwald who left her side when she was young...

Li Wan, the editor in charge of the trilogy, is a young writer and translator, and in her opinion, Jon Fausser's work has not attracted widespread attention from readers since it was introduced to China, and even veteran readers rarely know about him. "Fausser is not a topical writer, he has very consistently inherited the Nordic expressionist theater tradition, the language is concise and full of tension, the profound depiction of the spirit of the characters, the analysis of the relationship between people, all reach a high level. He does not write about trivial daily life, but focuses on the mental condition of people. Li Wan told Southern Weekend reporter, "The protagonist of Fasther's work is somewhat similar to himself, he is an alcoholic, has some mental problems, has many extreme marginal experiences, he is very direct to his heart, to expose himself, is a writer who can share the most helpless side of a person with others." ”

At the same time, Jon Fausher developed a unique style, rarely using periods, and a sentence was often written very, very long, and he used many commas to connect, giving people the feeling that the inner monologue was constantly rolling forward. This may have been due to the sensitivity of a playwright who brought the dramatic element into the novel. In addition, he will use some repetitive sentences in different parts of the novel, but this repetition is not exactly the same, but with the continuous change of context, subtle changes in words, variations and variations are produced, bringing a cyclical and continuous rhythm. Li Wan said.

Southern Weekend reporter Li Heng

Editor-in-charge: Liu Youxiang