Prolific Norwegian author and playwright Jon Fosse has won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The Swedish Academy said on Thursday that Fosse is being awarded the prize "for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable."

Fosse was born in 1959 and began his career in 1983.

He chose to craft his works in Nynorsk, one of Norway's two written languages.

He has published numerous novels, poetry collections and children's books.

The Swedish Academy also credits Fosse as one of the most widely performed playwrights in the world today.

It says his international breakthrough began in 1999, with the Paris production of his play "Someone Is Going to Come."

The Academy says Fosse's "radical reduction of language and dramatic action" allow him to translate intense human emotions into simple, everyday terms.