Over the course of his decades-long career, playwright and author Jon Fosse has drawn comparisons to Henrik Ibsen, Samuel Beckett and even George Harrison of the Beatles.
One of his English translators, Damion Searls, described Fosse’s work in The Paris Review in 2015: “Imagine the four elder statesmen of Norwegian literature a bit like the Beatles,” he wrote. “Per Petterson is the solid, ever-reliable Ringo; Dag Solstad is John, the experimenter, the idea generator; Karl Ove Knausgaard is Paul, the sweet one; and Fosse is George, the quiet, mystic, spiritual, probably the best craftsman of all.”
His works are spare and existential, often focusing on the inner lives of rather lonely characters. Winding sentences strung together are common; This also applies to the fishermen. “You don’t read my books for the plot,” he told the Financial Times in 2018.
Here you will find a guide to his major works.
Novels
Septology I-VII
Written in the wake of Fosse’s conversion to Catholicism, the seven novels in the extraordinary Septology series trace an aging artist’s reckoning with the divine and represent his most significant work of fiction. “Each novel begins in the same way, mid-thought, with Asle pondering how to complete his painting of the St. Andrew’s Cross; “Each one ends the same way, in the middle of a Latin prayer, at least until something different happens in the final book,” Randy Boyagarda wrote in his review.
Morning and evening
This short, powerful novella begins with the birth of Johannes, whose parents hope that he will become a fisherman like his father. Years later, as an old man, Johannes thinks about his family and close friendships. (Yes, he ended up becoming a fisherman.)
Melancholy I-II
These novels fictionalize the life of Lars Hertervig, a 19th-century Norwegian painter, as he descends into madness. While studying in Düsseldorf, Hertervig is paralyzed by concerns about his talent and is virtually homeless after his attraction to his landlady’s daughter leads him to outrageous sexual delusions.
Aliss by the fire
A woman named Signe remembers more than 20 years ago when her husband left on the boat and never came back. Soon her thoughts take on a metaphysical quality, even incorporating the memories of family members from previous generations. The fjord where Signe lives is a constant in all memories of loss and grief.
A radiant one
As an unnamed narrator drives aimlessly through the remote Norwegian forests late at night, his car gets stuck on the rutted road. Hopelessly lost, he finally gets out of his car, only to see a strange creature, “a brilliant white,” coming towards him.
Fosse’s literary agency calls the work, which will be published by Transit Books in the US on October 31, “a brilliant novel about the border between life and death.”
Boathouse
After a man – more or less a hermit – meets an old friend and his wife, the three find themselves in a dark love triangle.
plays
“I am the wind”
Fosse is considered the most performed living European playwright, although English adaptations are less common. “I Am the Wind” is an existential piece centered on two men in a fishing boat. “Fosse’s succinct, rhythmic screenplay captures an inner anxiety over fundamental questions of identity,” a Times critic wrote in 2014.
“A summer day”
This may remind you of “Aliss at the Fire” – the emotional center of this piece is a woman mournfully waiting for her husband to return from a fishing trip. Despite a clear, unbroken sense of dread, the play exerts “a strong but secret pull, an unmistakable dramatic momentum,” the Times critic wrote.
“Someone will come”
In this game of jealousy, sexual tension and paranoia, a couple moves into a remote, run-down old house by the sea where neither can shake the thought that “someone is coming.”
“The name”
A young pregnant girl moves into her parents’ house with the child’s father. Her parents do not know that she is pregnant, which adds to the claustrophobia of the play and the tension of the unspoken.