On Thursday, the Nobel Prize in Literature was given to Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse by the Swedish Academy. Fosse’s plays are among the most widely produced of any contemporary playwright in Europe.
According to the Swedish Academy, he was honored “for his innovative plays and prose that give voice to the unsayable.”
His writing is distinguished by form more than content, with what is not stated frequently revealing more than what is.
Here is a list of the 16 most recent winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature:
2023: Jon Fosse (Norway)
2022: Annie Ernaux (France)
2021: Abdulrazak Gurnah (Tanzania, Britain)
2020: Louise Gluck (US)
2019: Peter Handke (Austria)
2018: Olga Tokarczuk (Poland)
2017: Kazuo Ishiguro (Britain)
2016: Bob Dylan (US)
2015: Svetlana Alexievich (Belarus)
2014: Patrick Modiano (France)
2013: Alice Munro (Canada)
2012: Mo Yan (China)
2011: Tomas Transtromer (Sweden)
2010: Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)
2009: Herta Mueller (Germany)
2008: Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio (France)