Engaged literature can never be great literature. (Samuel) Beckett was right, (Jean Paul) Sartre was wrong. This is what this year's winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature says in an interview for Vijesti June Fosse (Jon Fosse). Good literature is local, which is not the same as national, but at the same time it is universal, explains the Nobel laureate.
He presents for Vijesti what leads him to/in writing, comments on literature, its purpose, importance, necessity, but also the challenges it faces, while an actress Jelena Mila, in agreement with him, but at her own choice, exclusively for Vijesti translated two poems from the writer's rich oeuvre.
The Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences recalled in its decision that Fose writes works in various genres, including plays, novellas, poetry, essays, books for children, that he was involved in translation work, but also that he is one of the most performed playwrights in the world. Jun Fose's plays and novels have been translated into more than 40 world languages, and his plays have been performed in more than 700 theaters around the world, making him one of the world's most important contemporary playwrights.
"Fose combines rootedness in the language and nature of his Norwegian hinterland with artistic techniques on the trail of modernism," said a member of the Swedish Academy, Anders Olson.
After a number of years during which he was at the very top among the candidates for the prestigious award, Jun Fose won it this year. On the news about the award, among other things, he said that it is an award "for literature that, above all, wants to be literature, without other pretensions", and he told the News that he was proud of that.
"I am very happy about the Nobel Prize for Literature that was awarded to me. Even if throughout the history of this award there have been some undeserving laureates, most of the winners are truly great writers who together form a kind of canon of world literature. I am extremely proud of the fact that my writing has also been assessed as worthy of belonging to that canon", reports Fose's impressions...
His writing is authentic and layered on many levels, although it is often characterized as minimalist. He has a deep and complex approach to topics, characters, culture, the language he writes in, and there is no doubt that Norwegian culture, identity and environment are reflected in his literature. Despite the fact that he deals with so-called local topics, all of his stories and worlds are universal because of this, and readers from all over the world can relate to them... The Nobel laureate explains to Vijesti why this is so.
“I grew up in Norway and I write in Norwegian. Everything I write is in a certain sense - Norwegian. In my opinion, all good literature is local, which is not the same as national, but it is universal at the same time. This paradox is at the center of a possible description of great literature. We have national literatures, and we also have world literatures. The most local and the most universal can make a change from national literature to world literature," says Jun Fose.
The writer mostly talks about the destinies of "little people", about people from the margins, from the provinces, often limited to one (life) space... Although he does not talk about big events, socio-political issues or historical topics, he deals with the eternal through his characters , essential questions and topics such as life, death, faith, freedom... These are perhaps especially intimate and important questions today, when almost everything is relativized. Fose investigates memory, history, individual and collective memory, with a starting point in individual experience, and he tells Vijesta that he believes that engagement in literature suppresses art itself.
"Engaged literature can never be great literature. Beckett was right, Sartre was wrong. It is not possible to write with this or that message in front of the work itself and at the same time write good literature. In essence, it is because literature and everything in literature is actually in the form itself, not in the content, which in my opinion is part of the form", says Fose.
He also assesses that the phenomenon of globalization, commercialization and consumerism, if they get involved in writing, lead to ready-made literature that is mass printed and marketed but lacks the rooted authenticity, quality and power that is the core of art.
"Some kind of 'globalized' literature does not have and will never have any value, it will resemble this or that airport and as such is neither local nor universal", says Fose.
The Norwegian has no doubt that real, great, canonical literature endures and represents a pillar of culture, causing echoes throughout time, while less significant works are lost in the abundance of everyday content and fade in the shadows of new, fleeting trends. Therefore, Fose claims that not even the most modern technology, artificial intelligence or any similar tool, manual or facility, can stand up to good handwriting and the human stamp on it.
"I am quite sure that great literature will survive, all the great classics are available and well known to all of us. Important and great literature is still being written today and will be written in the future. So, for example, what artificial intelligence (AI) can produce will always lack the quality of human soul and human spirit, which is precisely what is necessary for the existence of great literature... But weaker literature will undoubtedly find a competitor in AI, all types of genre literature, for example," states Fose in an interview with Vijesti.
At the awarding of the Nobel Prize in mid-December, he said that writing can somehow save lives, and that it may have saved his own. After more than 50 years, he said that he still writes "from that secret place inside himself", which he only knows exists.
What makes his works special and recognizable is the language he uses, the presence of different authentic Norwegian dialects. He pays special attention to exactly that - language: written and spoken, literary and artistic, folk, archaic, which reflects the richness and diversity of epochs, peoples, cultures, traditions, but also the people themselves and the environment, and ultimately the skill and beauty of storytelling. . At the awarding of the Nobel Prize, he said that he learned that for him there is a big difference between spoken and written words, spoken and written language, and he further explains this to Vijesti.
"The language of literature is related to the spoken language in this or that country, region, region and at the same time differs from it as a written language, that is the first and the last. The language of literature as such can save archaic words and expressions, or, in that sense, it can even save worlds that are no longer alive in the spoken language. It is so simple that it is actually the artistic quality that separates literature from spoken language. Maybe it's never like that, but even the old, oral literature was separated from ordinary speech by a specific meter, specific use of metaphors and the like," says Fose.
His works are healing, said Jelena Mila, commenting on the work of the Norwegian author, and this is exactly what Fosa is looking for in literature and writing, just as he said before the Swedish Royal Academy.
“In a way, I've always known that writing can save lives, maybe it saved mine. If my writing can save other people's lives, nothing would make me happier. Thank you Swedish Academy for the Nobel Prize for Literature. And thank you God", Fose concluded his address and announced that, just as he did not pay attention to bad reviews, he did not let success affect him either.
“I would just stick to writing. And now, after receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature, I will continue to stick to my writing," said Fosse.
He knows very little about Montenegro and the Western Balkans
A few years ago, the play "Mother and Child" based on Jun Fose's play, directed by Dino Mustafić, was performed in Montenegro, produced by the Multimedia Art Movement Foundation from Albania, in cooperation with Sarajevo's Art Hub, an independent theater production from Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was a guest appearance at the Festival of International Alternative Theater FIAT, which delighted the audience, equally with the text and plot, but also with the excellent direction and solutions of Mustafić.
When asked if and how much he knows about Montenegro and the region called the Western Balkans, given the geographical distance, Jun Fose admits that he doesn't know much.
"I know very little about Montenegro and the Western Balkans. I have never been to Montenegro. The closest thing to that is that I lived for years in the south of Austria, not far from the border with Slovenia and very close to Slovakia. I have visited that country many times, but it is, of course, something else," says the writer from Norway.
"Untitled"
They see them approaching each other.
And they both look down, but continue,
they have to keep going towards each other.
What are they thinking? Why are they both looking down?
They get closer to each other and no one notices
the other one. They go towards each other, as if
they can just walk past each other, like everyone else,
in this street, passing each other. How they think
those who once loved each other? Do their thoughts
and hearts yearn to be like rocks,
deep in the earth, or are they the rocks themselves? Is it theirs
shame such a heavy dream, that their movements are stone
without water, without wind and sky? They go towards each other.
They go towards each other. They go towards each other. They're going
one to the other. They go towards each other. They meet.
They pass each other. And they continue one after the other.
Translation: Jelena Mila
"Untitled"
Nothing in my life confirms the presence of God to me like the absence of my dead friends
God is all that disappears
Good art is divine; good art is a part of the inexplicable, just as God is in the explainable.
Without death, God would be dead.
Everything indicates that God is. There is nothing to indicate that God exists.
Why would God exist? God who is.
Existence means falling away from God
Because God would be
And so that everything else would happen.
Translated by Kristina Lugn, edited by Jelena Mila for Vijesti
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