2023-10-08 14:00:00
Bilal Ramadan wrote Sunday, October 8, 2023 05:00 PM
John Foss Or Jon Fosse, as some call him.. one of the most famous Norwegian writers, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature for the year 2023. He was born in 1959, grew up on a small farm on the west coast, studied literature at the University of Bergen, and after that he became a full-time writer, journalist, and teacher.
Through John Fosse’s literary and professional career he became a prolific writer, with a far-reaching and wide-ranging body of work, extending his pen to novels, poetry, essays, plays and even children’s books.
It is no wonder that Le Monde newspaper called him “the Beckett of the twenty-first century”, after he was nominated for the International Booker Prize for the second time in 2022, and after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, the International Booker Prize conducted a conversation with him, asking him about the books that influenced him, changed his view of the world and shaped his life.
Collected Poems by Olaf H. Hog
Collected Poems by Olaf H. Hog
John Vos says: In the village of Ulvik, not far from where I grew up, lived the poet Olaf H. Hogg. He is considered one of the greatest Norwegian poets. I read his poetry as a teenager, and some of his poems resonated deeply with me. Hogg was born fifty years before me. He had become an old man, and in his later years I would meet him every now and then, and he would send me some handwritten letters. They are now among my most prized possessions.
Collected Poems by George Trakl
John Fosse says: Hogg was a poet, but he was also a translator, his collected translations of poems from English, German and French published repeatedly in Norway. I read these translations as a teenager. What I liked most were his translations of German poetry. Hölderlin, Paul Celan and especially Georg Trakl. When I was very young, I acquired a collection of Trakl’s poems in German.
They left a lasting impression on me, perhaps the most influential of which was his major collection, Sebastian in a Dream,” Yon Fosse adds. A few years ago, I translated that collection into Norwegian. Trakle’s poetry does not translate well into English, but his poetry is still available in several English translations.
The Trial by Franz Kafka
The Trial by Franz Kafka
Another writer writing in German around the same time as Trakl wrote his poetry was Franz Kafka, says John Foske. His most famous and best novel is “The Trial.” I read this too when I was young, and this novel, and Kafka’s writing in general, remains the literature that fascinates me the most. My own translation of The Trial was recently published in Norway, and I have also translated a selection of his stories, which may be his best. Kafka changed the way we look at the world, and in doing so he changed the world.
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Johns Vos says: The books I read when I was young are still the ones that had the biggest impact on me, and one of them is The Sound and the Fury. It was a difficult book to read, and I spent a lot of time reading it and trying to understand it. This novel, in various ways, left a lasting impression on me, and it remains one of those reading experiences that stays with me for all time.
Collected Short Plays of Samuel Beckett
Jon Fosse says: I first saw Beckett’s works written for the theater in a production of three of his short plays in Oslo. At that time I had not seen many plays, and I can remember that evening clearly. Since then, the Beckett family has stayed with me. Of course, I am an admirer of his plays. The bigger ones, like Waiting for Godot, but I still think his later, shorter plays are the most impressive.
Virginia Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
John Foss says: In my early twenties, I read many great modernist novelists, and fell in love with Virginia Woolf’s novels. The first thing I read was Mrs. Dalloway. To me, it felt like she was throwing the words around and each one of them fell exactly, precisely, where it should be in a graceful movement like the most beautiful literary music you could ask for. My understanding of literature was different after I read this novel.
Bible
Bible
Jones Vos says: I cannot make such a list without mentioning the Book of Books, the Bible. I was asked two decades ago to write a new translation of the Bible in Norwegian, and to try to get as close to the original texts as possible – Bible translations often give an interpretation of the meaning rather than what is actually written – they wanted to involve writers in the translation process who had worked closely with Experts, I worked for eleven years translating the prophets, writing almost all of the prophetic literature. This must have influenced my writing in some way, even if I did not know it.
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