What does a Nobel Prize mean?

When the Nobel Prize in literature was awarded to Jon Fosse, it was not only the first prize awarded to a Norwegian author in almost a hundred years. It was also the greatest prize ever awarded to an author writing in Nynorsk. ‘Jon Fosse proves that art of the very highest quality can be produced in this little language which a mere few hundred thousand of us use every day,’ wrote journalist Ivar Bruvik Sætre in the regional newspaper Firda.

Fosse writes confidently in Nynorsk. However, not all authors are able to write in their own
language. In Norway, the Sami language was suppressed for a long time. In other countries the authorities go out of their way to persecute expression in minority languages, as in the case of Uyghur in China.

The Nynorsk author Frode Grytten, the Sami author and academic Saia Marilena Stueng and the Uyghur author and activist Abduweli Ayup converse with Ingeborg Volan about what happens to literature if authors are not allowed to use their language of choice, and why it is important to be able to express oneself in their mother tongue.

In collaboration with Norwegian PEN.