The Swedish Academy honours Norwegian author and dramatist Jon Fosse with the Nobel Prize in literature.

Fosse was honoured for “his innovative plays and prose, which give voice to the unsayable”, the awarding body, the Swedish Academy, said on Thursday.

One of his country’s most-performed dramatists, Fosse, 64, has written some 40 plays as well as novels, short stories, children’s books, poetry and essays.

Mats Malm, permanent secretary of the academy who announced the prize in Stockholm, said he reached Fosse by telephone to inform him of the prize and that the writer was driving in the countryside and promised to drive home carefully.

Anders Olsson, chair of the Nobel literature committee, said Fosse’s work is rooted “in the language and nature of his Norwegian background”.

Previous winner

Last year, French author Annie Ernaux won the prize for what the Swedish Academy called “the courage and clinical acuity” of books rooted in her small-town background in the Normandy region of northwest France.

Ernaux was just the 17th woman among the 119 Nobel literature laureates. The literature prize has long faced criticism that it is too focused on European and North American writers, as well as too male-dominated.

On Wednesday, the chemistry prize was awarded to Moungi Bawendi of MIT, Louis Brus of Columbia University, and Alexei Ekimov of Nanocrystals Technology Inc.

They were honoured for their work with tiny particles called quantum dots – tiny particles that can release very bright-coloured light and whose applications in everyday life include electronics and medical imaging.

Earlier this week, Hungarian-American Katalin Kariko and American Drew Weissman won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discoveries that enabled the creation of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.

On Tuesday, the physics prize went to French-Swedish physicist Anne L’Huillier, French scientist Pierre Agostini and Hungarian-born Ferenc Krausz for producing the first split-second glimpse into the super-fast world of spinning electrons.

The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded on Friday and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences ends the awards season on Monday.

The Nobel Prizes carry a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1m) from a bequest left by the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel.

Winners also receive an 18-carat gold medal and diploma when they collect their Nobel Prizes at the award ceremonies in December.