37 h. ago Vaim by Jon Fosse review – the Nobel laureate performs a strange miracle

In the Norwegian master’s latest example of ‘mystical realism’, one man makes a dreamlike, hypnotic voyage through life“I have always known that writing can save lives,” said the Norwegian author Jon Fosse in his speech accepting the 2023 Nobel prize in literature. “And if my writing also can help to save the lives of others, nothing would make me happier.” Rare is the novelist who talks in such language these days: fiction tends to know its modest place. Fosse, who is also a poet and an essayist, and one of the most widely performed playwrights in the world, follows his own path. A case in point: Septology (2019-2021), published across three volumes, running to more than 800 pages, containing a single sentence. Forget formalism, though; his fictions, often set in fjordic Norway, are disintegration loops, quiet and incantatory, emotionally overwhelming.At fewer than 120 pages, Vaim, his first new work since winning the Nobel, is a wisp of a thing. Divided into three sections, each n...

Politics

6 d. ago Football Daily | Infantino, Trump and giving peace a chance: Fifa

Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now!When María Corina Machado won this year’s Nobel peace prize for her “tireless work promoting democratic rights”, Donald Trump took the news as Maga-nanimously as you might expect. Having tirelessly run a campaign of self-promotion to ensure he won it himself, the president of the USA USA USA immediately claimed the credit for the Venezuelan opposition leader’s triumph, listed his own self-proclaimed and often dubious achievements in the field of global peacemaking and attacked the credibility of the committee who made the decision not to award the medal, cash prize and diploma to him. While security concerns mean it remains to be seen if the newly crowned Nobel laureate will emerge from hiding to pick up her accolade in person at the Oslo ceremony in December, a certain obsequious Fifa president appears hell-bent on stealing her thunder anyway. Yup, Gianni Infantino has decided to award a peace prize of his own creation in front of ...

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1 week ago New inquest rules South African Nobel laureate Albert Luthuli was beaten to death in 1967

A new inquest into the 1967 death of South African Nobel Peace Prize winner and anti-apartheid leader Albert Luthuli has found that he was beaten to death

Events

2 w. ago Wole Soyinka, Nigerian Nobel laureate and Trump critic, says US visa revoked

Soyinka, 91, who recently compared US president to Idi Amin, says ‘I have no visa – I am banned’The Trump administration has revoked the visa for Wole Soyinka, the acclaimed Nigerian Nobel prize-winning writer who has been critical of Trump since his first presidency, Soyinka revealed on Tuesday.“I want to assure the consulate that I’m very content with the revocation of my visa,” Soyinka, who won the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, told a news conference. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Shockingly good literary fiction: MONA'S EYES by Thomas Schlesser, LOVE DIVINE by Ysenda Maxtone Graham, VAIM by Jon Fosse

Stephanie Cross reviews some of the best literary fiction out this month

Events

3 w. ago Harry and Meghan join AI pioneers in call for ban on superintelligent systems

Nobel laureates also sign letter saying ASI technology should be barred until there is consensus that it can be developed ‘safely’The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have joined artificial intelligence pioneers and Nobel laureates in calling for a ban on developing superintelligent AI systems.Harry and Meghan are among the signatories of a statement calling for “a prohibition on the development of superintelligence”. Artificial superintelligence (ASI) is the term for AI systems, yet to be developed, that exceed human levels of intelligence at all cognitive tasks. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Rush(es) by Alexandra Bachzetsis review: this performance art revels in the strange and sensual

Touching on subjects like desire, the commodification of the body and machines, Bachzetsis constructs a fascinating tension between performer and audience

Politics

last month Nobel laureate Philippe Aghion says creative upbringing shaped his vision of innovation and freedom

French Nobel economics laureate Philippe Aghion reflects on the creative roots that shaped his award-winning ideas about innovation and growth

Politics