He is the author of eight novels and several novels and collections of essays and short stories. His other novels include “The White Book,” nominated for the International Booker Prize, and “Greek Lessons,” published in English in 2023.
In “Greek Lessons,” a woman loses her ability to speak and tries to restore it by learning the ancient Greek language. Idra Novi, in a review for The Times, called the novel “a celebration of the inexplicable hope found in sharing language”.
Anki Mukherjee, a professor of literature at Oxford University, said in a telephone interview that he had taught Hahn’s work “year after year” for nearly two decades. “His writing is relentlessly political — whether it’s the body, gender, politics of people struggling against the state — but it never leaves the literary imagination,” added Mukherjee: “It’s never sacred; it’s very playful, funny and surreal.
The Nobel Prize is the premier award in literature, and winning it is a milestone in the career of a writer, poet or playwright. Past recipients include Toni Morrison, Harold Pinter and, in 2016, Bob Dylan. With a huge boost in value and sales, the new laureate receives 11 million Swedish krona, about $1 million.
In recent years, the academy has tried to increase the diversity of authors considered for the literary prize, after facing criticism over the low number of female laureates or those from outside Europe and North America.
Since 2020, the Academy has honored a person of color – Abdulrazak Gurna, a Tanzanian writer whose novels dissect the legacies of colonialism – as well as two women: the American poet Louise Kluk and the French writer Anne Ernaux. Autobiographical works.
Last year’s recipient was Jan Foss, a Norwegian writer and playwright whose novels, told in long sentences, often contain religious themes.
