No one had read any of Jon Fosse until he was awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature; in fact, the name was unfamiliar. That ignorance was softened when it became clear this was not a singular achievement but a shared experience for many readers. To approach this Norwegian author, as with unfamiliar writers, the reader starts from the reasons cited for the prize. Translating CNN’s summary, the judges highlighted how Fosse presents everyday situations that feel instantly recognizable in our own lives, how his radical reduction of language matches the most powerful human emotions, and how simple terms convey anxiety and impotence. With that in mind, the reader acquired his latest published novel, White (Blancura) from Penguin Random House, 2023. In the book’s presentation, other arguments for the award were noted: for his innovative plays and prose that give voice to what cannot be spoken aloud. Ready to read.
The novel appears easy at first glance but hides a high level of difficulty, especially due to its logic-defying content that invites a reader who is comfortable contemplating alternate possible worlds. There is a clear stylistic intention that, while distant from everyday prose, brings to mind the texture of crochet—the writer weaves a narrative by repeatedly returning to the same word, each instance becoming the thread that builds the next stitch. A line repeats: “They were here. My mother was here. And my father was here. I saw them there, across, yes, right there, there. Right there, across, yes. Or perhaps it was here…” (p. 70) The short phrase is paired with much longer sentences, yet always following the same thread-like pattern of repetition. The book often reveals what the characters say through the steady refrains “She says,” “He says” (pp. 60–61).
The setup is linear, told through a narrator with an inner voice who, almost automatically, drives a car into a forest road. The action unfolds in the present moment, punctuated by occasional references to a past marked by tense verbs: “I got into the car and left” (p. 7). Personal details are scarce: a long life of transgression (p. 25), living alone (p. 46), and a mind that remains clear (p. 54). While walking, the narrator enters a woods and becomes lost. Cold, fear, and possible visions accompany him: a stone at the forest’s center, a man in a black suit, a creature in whiteness, and a couple that might be a married pair. Fosse sustains a conviction, using a periphrase of obligation, that “everything perceived, in some way, must be real” (p. 81).
The narrative tension is significant: “Inside the forest I am me, and I am utterly alone” (p. 67). The aim is to guide the reader into a crisis that keeps them turning pages with a strong sense of anticipation. This is an existential novel in which the protagonist’s lack of will defies conventional logic, touching on transcendence through a confrontation with the apparently absurd. The length, even at 89 pages, feels extended due to the printing style; on lighter interline spacing, the book could occupy roughly half as many pages.
So why should readers pick up this short novel? Because the award committee’s arguments make a persuasive case for enjoying the book: the way the work metaphors the anguish of existence and the inability to react, the author’s chosen method of narration, the repeated lexicon that sustains the content and the progressive action. All of it aligns to lead readers, after crossing a dense gray area, into an astonishing whiteness of comprehension and experience.