Jan-Heiner Tück: Last Wednesday, Pope Leo XIV addressed a group of writers at the Vatican. In his speech, he said, "We need you." You were there. How did you experience the meeting with the Pope?
Jon Fosse: I felt very proud to be invited to this meeting. Years ago, I was invited to the Sistine Chapel where Pope Benedict XVI had invited artists from all over the world to a meeting. At the time, the message was even if the artists don't need the Church, the Church needs the artists. This was, as far as I understood, organized in memory of a similar meeting, with a similar message, organized by Pope John Paul II. It was years before I converted to Catholicism, so I didn't at all understand why I, as the only Nordic artist, was invited.
But the message was evident to me: art, good art, art worth the name (be it visual art, music, literature, whatever) keeps a spiritual level alive in society, and true religious belief is dependent on that level (even if the Church also can and will exist without it, in a way). To me Pope Leo's speech confirmed this crucial insight and addressed it directly to me as well as the other authors. Even if I don't deserve this trust, I’m sure literature deserves it; and, for sure, the other writers gathered in the room. And to shake hands, of course, and exchange a few words, with Pope Leo was a very emotional moment for me. The feeling of the Apostolic succession was, so to speak, very present.
Tück: "Writing, as you know, is an act of truth, of revelation, for it reveals who we are, what we believe in, and what we hope for the world we strive for and the future we dream of," Leo said. Truth and revelation are also theological categories. As a writer, how do you interpret this statement, that writing can become an act of truth and revelation?
Fosse: To write you must trust something, or perhaps someone. You need a kind of almost childish confidence. If you don't have this, yes, a kind of naivety, in you, I don't think you’ll dare to write (of course I'm now thinking about so-called creative writing, a concept I dislike, I much prefer the German Dichtung). When writing you must write something in a sense completely new, otherwise it isn't worth the effort, and in doing so you have, in some ways, to lose control. And without control you need confidence. When writing I don't care whether people will like it or not. It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that I’m writing well – that means, writing truth as much as it is possible in exactly that text, within the universe of exactly that text.
In the text, I must follow the "rules" of the "universe" to write anything of any possible value. Still, this is always a journey into the unknown, and such journeys are exciting as much as they are also scary. If I knew what I was going to write before I wrote it, the experience of writing would not be writing, but teaching or something like that. I must bring something new into the world that wasn’t there previously; or at least something that I didn’t know before. When this happens, it might perhaps be called revelation (even if I feel it is a much too demanding word for me to use). Not all writing is like this. Bad literature simply follows established rules (as in genre literature), copies another writer’s way of writing (epigonal writing), or it is calculated towards this or that audience, or "market".
When writing, I don't think about anyone reading it. If I did, I’d be scared and stop writing. I’m not addressing anyone. But still the writing is directed towards someone! Is it to me alone? I simply know that it isn't. I once said in an interview that I was writing to God!This was after the question, for whom I was writing, had been posed by a journalist for I don’t know how many times. I felt quite ashamed, after the headline appeared in the newspapers in big letters, as if a war had broken out: "Fosse writes for God". Then I read Franz Kafka saying about the same thing. And then I didn't feel that stupid anymore. And I started thinking, perhaps writing is a kind of prayer? Perhaps, for someone like me, it is my main way of praying? Not all writing, not all the time, but at least some writing, sometimes?
At a certain point I feel that what I’m writing, had already been written. The play or the novel or whatever is already there, and I simply need to write it down before it disappears.
Tück: It's noteworthy that the Pope points out the unavailability and the transcendence of truth: "We are never masters of the truth; rather, it is the truth that conquers us." Your Austrian fellow writer Michael Köhlmeier recently spoke of a transformative experience while writing: "It is no longer I who write, but it writes through me." He linked this experience to inspiration. "Inspiration is the artist's experience of God." Do you have such experiences when writing?
Fosse: No doubt. All the time. I feel writing is an act of listening. As soon as I have written down a few sentences and pages, I obviously listen to what I have already written, of course, as I move forward in the writing. Going onwards, I then mainly listen to something that only partly is within me – that is only partly my language, my way of writing, my knowledge about how to write. Something that essentially is out there somewhere. And at a certain point, I feel that what I’m writing is already written, the play or the novel or whatever is already there, and I simply must write it down before it disappears. For years, I’ve thought of myself as being, in a way, three persons: the private person Jon, the official person Jon Fosse, and the writerly I, that is not me, but an I inside (or perhaps outside?) of my I. And I always feel that writing is a way to escape from myself, my private person, not to express myself.
Perhaps there is a contradiction between the idea of writing as a constantly new prayer and the idea that what I’m writing is already there before I write it. It seems within the limitations of language one often comes closest to the truth by way of paradox. To me, Christianity is basically paradoxical – God being one and three, God being God and human, even the cross is a paradox, etc. The same goes for literature, but for sure not for the logic of science. I think the quote by the Pope is exactly to the point, it is "the truth that conquers us". That goes for literature as well as for believing. All is given. All is grace.
Tück: The postmodern thesis of the death of the author seems to be coming dangerously close to reality due to AI. The first poems, short stories, and novels produced by AI have already been published. In his first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas, Leo XIV pointed out the dangers of AI. How do you defend, through your writing, the unmistakable voice of human beings as creatures?
Fosse: When it comes to real literature, to literature of quality, not of quantity, the literature in which a writer has his or her very distinct voice, I’m not really afraid. Such literature has, so to speak, such a strong spiritual dimension that a machine could never have. But after it has been created, I guess, a machine could copy it, vary it, and produce a fake that comes close to whatever such a writer might have written. It’s almost like with painting. Once Picasso had begun painting the way he did, it wasn't difficult for other painters to copy him. The AI is always an epigone. And in realty a lot of epigones are considered good writers. So, perhaps, AI could sharpen our eyes for other kinds of epigonism?
On the other hand, I’m rather sure that AI could write genre literature as well as any crime writer could. At least in a shorter time. One interesting point might be that something a human being creates is never perfect, and if it is, it has lost its beauty. But AI perhaps already has understood this. One thing is for sure: it has been politically correct to blur the distinction between serious and commercial literature. This project has been destroyed by AI. Pop art no longer exists as something interesting. But the voice of a new Mark Rothko will be stronger than ever.
Even if I don't dare to think that God might reveal something in my writing. To me that would be hybris of the worst kind.
Tück:In your own work, you circle around the nameless mystery we call God, without seeking to comprehend the incomprehensible or to capture it in language. Thus, through tentative language, the presence of the present shines forth again and again. The Pope hinted at something similar in his address: "When we delve into the deepest depths of our humanity, we are not far from God, for there, in the midst of very human stories, God reveals Himself," Leo said. Would you agree?
Fosse: I completely agree! Even if I don't dare to think that God might reveal something in my writing. In my mind that would be hubris of the worst kind, and it would be the opposite of the humbleness you need to be able to write, or at least it is so for me.
Tück: In your trilogy, Septology, basic Latin prayers such as the Ave Maria or the Pater Noster are woven in, as if you were inviting readers to join in reciting these prayers that countless people before us have spoken. To what extent do storytelling and the act of prayer go hand in hand for you?
Fosse: To me these traditional prayers are very important. Somehow this traditional way of praying – I would have no qualms saying this real way of praying – might be almost the opposite of the way of writing and literature might be a way of praying. The Pater Noster has a value far above all literature. Perhaps, it contains all literature. Thy kingdom come.
I don't know why I wrote Septology in that way. It came to me that way. I think that’s the most honest answer I’m able to give. Still, it feels wrong to use the word inspiration, at least the way I understand that concept. I try to figure out why, and it might perhaps have something to do with the notion that it sounds so passive, while writing is an activity. It is an act, even if it’s true that it happens, as Martin Heidegger said. Listening is also an act, in a way. It is given, yes, but you, or something within you, must respond to it in order to realize this gift. And that’s a type of work. And it has something of craftsmanship to it. These thoughts are very unclear. But I’m sure that the word inspiration doesn't give the right picture of what writing is to me – to put it that way, there is too little of body, of flesh, in it.