Inside Nobel Prize 2023: Peace and Literature Award Recipients

During the week of 2-9 October, 2023 the world got to know this year's recipients of the Nobel prize. Among the remarkable figures, one can find two outstanding winners: Narges Mohammadi and Jon Fosse, the awardees of the Peace and Literature categories, respectively. Both of them were considered exceptional in their pursuits by the Nobel Committees and are worth dwelling on in their stories and work.

The Nobel Prize is a gleaning of the legacy of Alfred Nobel. He was a Swedish inventor, entrepreneur, scientist and businessman. On November 27th 1895, he signed his last will and specified that his fortune should be divided into five and be used for funding prizes in the categories that reflected his broad interests: physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace. He specified that recipients were to be a great benefit to humankind in the preceding year. This prestigious prize has been awarded until today and brings publicity and funding to most of its recipients.

Nagres Mohammadi VOA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

‘’…one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” In these words, Alfred Nobel subsumed his perfect recipient of the Peace Prize and in 2023 this ideal was met by Nagres Mohammadi's profile. She is an Iranian women’s rights activist and a vice president of Defenders of Humans Rights Center (DHRC). Her activist work dates back to over 30 years of work, which cost her freedom, and health as she developed epilepsy symptoms. The committee decided that she deserved to be awarded for her “fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all”.

Mohammadi used to write for a variety of reformist newspapers and published her political essays in a book titled: The Reforms, the Strategy and the Tactics. Her activist work revolves around women’s rights in Iran, the abolition of the death penalty, and the calling to improve living conditions in prison. She is currently imprisoned and is serving around 10 more years in Teheran’s Evin Prison, for spreading anti-government propaganda. Despite that, she continues her activist work, writing letters, voicing her concerns about the treatment of female prisoners in Evin, organizing protests, and expressing her thoughts about current events in Iran. Because of her ongoing activity from behind bars, she was banned from contacting her family 18 months ago. She also did not find out about the Nobel Prize until a couple of days later due to telephone communication restrictions in her prison.

On October 5th, 2023, another person joined the ensemble of Nobel Prize Winners: Jon Fosse, who received a Literature award “for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable.” He is a Norwegian writer, creating his oeuvre in Norwegian Nyorsk, which is a minority language in his home country. His immense generativity consists of a wide variety of genres: plays, novels, poetry, essays, children’s books, as well as translations of foreign authors.

Tom A. Kolstad/Det norske samlaget., CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Fosse and his literature were a prospect for a Nobel Prize for over 10 years. However, he lost faith that it would actually happen. “I am both really happy and really surprised. I have been among the favourites for 10 years and felt sure that I would never get the prize. I simply cannot believe it.” He said in a statement sent by his Norwegian publisher.

Critics used to compare Fosse’s plays to the legacy of two other Nobel laureates: Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett. However, his Norwegian editors are positive that if one had to open any of his books and read a couple of lines, it would become clear that it couldn’t be written by anyone else. Fosse says that he wants his readers to find peace and a feeling of serenity in his writings and this is the most prominent trait of his literature, which makes it different from everything else.

Asked about advice to give to other writers, by Literary Hub, Fosse stated that for him the most important thing is to listen to your own heart while making decisions about your writing. When my first novel was published it got lots of bad reviews, and they haunted me, and if I had listened to them I would have stopped writing. Of course, this goes both ways. For example, my plays were a great success but I decided to stop writing plays, and I stopped for many years. Instead, I went back to where I started, writing my kind of fiction and poetry. Good reaction or bad reaction: it doesn’t matter, I stick to what I know, what I feel I need to write, what I can do and not what I want to do.

Fosse is one of the most performed writers alive, with his plays translated into around 50 languages. However, he has only lately received widespread recognition in the English-speaking world, primarily for his fiction, which means that there is still a lot for us to uncover! The best piece to start one's journey with Fosses’s work would be Septology- a series of novels which tells the story of an elderly artist reconnecting with the divine. It is one of Fosse’s most popular pieces translated into English, so it gives a good start for any literature enthusiast willing to get to know his prose better.

Receiving a Nobel Prize is undoubtedly the highest award one can get in the modern world. It is associated with the prestige and professionalism of the recipient, which makes them a model example of an expert in a given area. There is certainly a lot that people can learn from both Nagres Mohammadi and Jon Fosse, not only in their specific areas, but also as role models: Nagres is a prime example of standing firm against injustice and true to one's beliefs, and Jon's career shows perseverance and staying true to your hearts desires, despite public opinion. As it shows, both of these attitudes are repaid and hopefully will be more and more fruitful in the future.

References

All Nobel Prizes 2023 - NobelPrize.org. (n.d.). Nobel Prize. Retrieved October 23, 2023, from https://www.nobelprize.org/all-nobel-prizes-2023/

Creamer, E., & Fosse, J. (2023, October 5). Jon Fosse wins the 2023 Nobel prize in literature. The Guardian. Retrieved October 23, 2023, from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/05/jon-fosse-wins-the-2023-nobel-prize-in-literature

Dehghan, S. K. (2012, April 26). Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi arrested | Iran. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2012/apr/26/iran-activist-narges-mohammadi-jailed

Howard, A. (2023, October 6). Jon Fosse wins the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature for giving 'voice to the unsayable'. The Conversation. Retrieved October 23, 2023, from https://theconversation.com/jon-fosse-wins-the-2023-nobel-prize-in-literature-for-giving-voice-to-the-unsayable-215143

Temple, E. (2023, October 10). Newly minted Nobel Laureate Jon Fosse on the best writing advice he's ever received. Literary Hub. Retrieved October 23, 2023, from https://lithub.com/newly-minted-nobel-laureate-jon-fosse-on-the-best-writing-advice-hes-ever-received/

Ulaby, N. (2023, October 5). Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse wins the 2023 Nobel Prize in literature. NPR. Retrieved October 23, 2023, from http://npr.org/2023/10/05/1203690242/norwegian-playwright-jon-fosse-wins-the-2023-nobel-prize-in-literature

Ulaby, N. (2023, October 5). Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse wins the 2023 Nobel Prize in literature. NPR. Retrieved October 23, 2023, from http://npr.org/2023/10/05/1203690242/norwegian-playwright-jon-fosse-wins-the-2023-nobel-prize-in-literature

Wintour, P. (2023, October 6). Jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi wins Nobel peace prize. The Guardian. Retrieved October 23, 2023, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/06/jailed-iranian-activist-narges-mohammadi-wins-2023-nobel-peace-prize