JON FOSSE

Translated from the Norwegian by Damion Searls

WINNER OF THE 2023 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE'

A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST BOOK OF 2025

By Nobel Laureate in Literature Jon Fosse, Vaim begins a trilogy of novels set in a remote Norwegian fishing village. 

Jatgeir travels from the fishing village of Vaim to the city in search of a needle and thread. Cheated twice, he returns to his boat, where he falls asleep as waves rock the hull. Soon he is awakened by a voice: a woman is calling his name from the quay. There stands Eline, the secret love of his youth—and the namesake of his boat—with a packed suitcase. Eline pleads to come aboard. In what follows, this single encounter reverberates across three stories: three narrators, three deaths.

The first new work from Jon Fosse since he was awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature, Vaim is a spectral novel that wanders and watches, imbued with things half-seen, perhaps not of this world yet still caught in its rhythms. The first in a trilogy of novels, it continues his investigation into the human condition: the subtle encounters that come to define our lives and our deaths, and what lies in the threshold between what is and what is longed for.

JON FOSSE

Translated from the Norwegian by Damion Searls

New York Times Editors’ Choice
Septology named one of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times

Asle is an aging painter and widower who lives alone on the west coast of Norway. His only friends are his neighbor, Åsleik, a traditional fisherman-farmer, and Beyer, a gallerist who lives in the city. There, in Bjørgvin, lives another Asle, also a painter but lonely and consumed by alcohol. Asle and Asle are doppelgängers—two versions of the same person, two versions of the same life.

In this second installment of Jon Fosse’s Septology, “a major work of Scandinavian fiction” (Hari Kunzru), the two Asles meet for the first time in their youth. They look strangely alike, dress identically, and both want to be painters. At art school in Bjørgvin, Asle meets and falls in love with his future wife, Ales. Written in melodious and hypnotic “slow prose,” I is Another: Septology III-V is an exquisite metaphysical novel about love, art, God, friendship, and the passage of time.

Jon Fosse

Translated by Damion Searls

WINNER OF THE 2023 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

By Nobel Laureate in Literature Jon Fosse, Vaim Hotel continues a triptych of novels set in a remote Norwegian fishing village.

No one knows why The Guest has traveled to Vaim. He checks into the Vaim Hotel, whose only other inhabitant is Brita, the domineering proprietor who swears she’s seen him before and slips into his daily wanderings. As he acquaints himself with village life, The Guest soon learns that Vaim is not like other places. Then things start to vanish: his new fishing pole; his wallet, bag, and car keys. With no way to pay his bill, The Guest must accept that his short trip has become an indefinite stay.

Suffused with dark humor and “mystical realism” (The Guardian), Vaim Hotel—which can be read on its own or as the second of a loose triptych—occupies the intersection of the mundane and the uncanny. It’s a mesmerizing tragicomic novel unfolding a world caught between temporal reality and otherworldly implications—where everything is as it's been, and nothing is as it seems.

JON FOSSE

Translated from the Norwegian by Damion Searls

2022 International Booker Prize, Finalist
2022 National Book Award, Finalist
New York Times Editors’ Choice
Septology named one of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times

Asle is an aging painter and widower who lives alone on the west coast of Norway. His only friends are his neighbor, Åsleik, a traditional fisherman-farmer, and Beyer, a gallerist who lives in the city. There, in Bjørgvin, lives another Asle, also a painter but lonely and consumed by alcohol. Asle and Asle are doppelgängers—two versions of the same person, two versions of the same life.

In this final installment of Jon Fosse’s Septology, “a major work of Scandinavian fiction” (Hari Kunzru), we follow the lives of the two Asles as younger adults in flashbacks: the narrator meets his lifelong love, Ales; joins the Catholic Church; and makes a living by trying to paint away all the pictures stuck in his mind. A New Name: Septology VI-VII is a transcendent exploration of the human condition, and a radically other reading experience—incantatory, hypnotic, and utterly unique.

JON FOSSE

Translated from the Norwegian by Damion Searls

WINNER OF THE 2023 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

International Booker Prize, Finalist
National Book Award, Finalist
National Book Critics Circle Award, Finalist
Selected as one of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times

What makes us who we are? And why do we lead one life and not another? Asle, an aging painter and widower who lives alone on the southwest coast of Norway, is reminiscing about his life. His only friends are his neighbor, Åsleik, a traditional fisherman-farmer, and Beyer, a gallerist who lives in the city. There, in Bjørgvin, lives another Asle, also a painter but lonely and consumed by alcohol. Asle and Asle are doppelgängers—two versions of the same person, two versions of the same life, both grappling with existential questions about death, love, light and shadow, faith and hopelessness.

The three volumes of Jon Fosse’s Septology—The Other Name, I is Another, and A New Name—are a transcendent exploration of the human condition, and a radically other reading experience—incantatory, hypnotic, and utterly unique.

JON FOSSE

Translated from the Norwegian by Damion Searls

2023 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

A New Yorker Best Book of 2023

In Fosse's first novel since his critically acclaimed Septology, a man starts driving without knowing where he is going. He alternates between turning right and left, and ultimately finds himself stuck at the end of a forest road. It soon grows dark and begins to snow. But instead of searching for help, he ventures, foolishly, into the dark forest. Inevitably the man gets lost, and as he grows cold and tired, he encounters a glowing being amid the obscurity. Strange, haunting and dreamlike, A Shining is the latest work of fiction by National Book Award-finalist Jon Fosse, “the Beckett of the twenty-first century” (Le Monde).

JON FOSSE

Translated from the Norwegian by Damion Searls

New York Times Editors’ Choice
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 NATIONAL TRANSLATION AWARD
Septology named one of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times

The Other Name follows the lives of two men living close to each other on the west coast of Norway. The year is coming to a close and Asle, an aging painter and widower, is reminiscing about his life. He lives alone, his only friends being his neighbor, Åsleik, a bachelor and traditional Norwegian fisherman-farmer, and Beyer, a gallerist who lives in Bjørgvin, a couple hours’ drive south of Dylgja, where he lives. There, in Bjørgvin, lives another Asle, also a painter. He and the narrator are doppelgangers—two versions of the same person, two versions of the same life.

Written in hypnotic prose that shifts between the first and third person, The Other Name calls into question concrete notions around subjectivity and the self. What makes us who we are? And why do we lead one life and not another? Through flashbacks, Fosse deftly explores the convergences and divergences in the lives of both Asles, slowly building towards a decisive encounter between them both. A writer at the zenith of his career, with The Other Name, the first two volumes in his Septology, Fosse presents us with an indelible and poignant exploration of the human condition that will endure as his masterpiece.

JON FOSSE

Translated from the Norwegian by Damion Searls

WINNER OF THE 2023 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

The essential lecture delivered by the 2023 Nobel Laureate in Literature, published for the first time in a collectible edition.

“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.”