The Nobel prize in literature is prestigious, lucrative and bonkers

The announcement of the winner of the Nobel prize in literature usually prompts one of three reactions. The first is “Who?”; the second is “Why?”; the third—by far the rarest—is “Hurrah!” This year, reactions were firmly in the first two camps. On October 5th Jon Fosse, a Norwegian, was awarded the world’s most prestigious writing prize. Many literary buffs had never heard of him. Mr Fosse writes mainly in Nynorsk, a form of Norwegian which is, even among the country’s writers, a minority pursuit. His best-known (but still little-known) work is a trilogy called “Septology”, which touts itself as a “radically other reading experience”.