A Silent Language

The Nobel Lecture

Published in book form for the first time, Jon Fosse’s Nobel Lecture, delivered in Stockholm in December 2023, translated by Damion Searls. 

‘If there’s any metaphor I would use for the act of writing, it would have to be listening,’ says Jon Fosse in A Silent Language, the lecture he delivered after being awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature. When he writes, Fosse explains, he listens for texts that exist somewhere outside of himself in order to transcribe them before they disappear. With reverence and humility, Fosse traces his relationship to writing and celebrates the capacity of language to embrace the mystery, complexity and existential uncertainty of the human experience. ‘It is only in the silence that you can hear God’s voice,’ he says, offering a key to his beloved works of drama and fiction. ‘Maybe.’

Contributor: Damion Searls (Edited by), Chris Hall (Translated by)

Translator: Chris Hall

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