How Nobel laureate Jon Fosse continues the literary traditions of Robert Walser and Franz Kafka

Reading the Norwegian writer and winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature Jon Fosse’s Scenes from a Childhood (2018) reminded me of Robert Walser and Franz Kafka. To be precise: Walser’s Berlin Stories (2006) and A Schoolboy’s Diary (2013), both originally published in 1956, and Kafka’s short prose pieces. To set the tone and mood for Fosse’s prose, let me first illustrate what exactly made me think of Walser and Kafka as Fosse’s literary precursors.

In Walser’s Berlin Stories, you read passages like these:

“You encounter eyes as you walk along like this: girls’ eyes and the eyes of men, mirthless and gay; legs are trotting behind and before you, and you too are legging along as best you can, gazing with your own eyes, glancing the same glances as everyone else. And each breast bears some somnolent secret, each head is haunted by some melancholy or inspiring thought. Splendid, splendid.”

“On my way home, which struck me as splendid, it was snowing in thick, warm, large flakes. It seemed to me as if I heard homeland-like sounds ringing out from afar. My steps were brisk despite the deep snow through which I was assiduously wading. With every step I took, my shaken trust grew firmer again, which filled...

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