Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse, who on Thursday won the Nobel literature prize, said he was "surprised, but also not" as his name has cropped in the past.

"I was surprised, but also not. I've been part of the discussion for 10 years and have more and less tentatively prepared myself that this could happen," the 64-year-old writer told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK.

"But believe me, I didn't expect to get the prize today," he said.

The playwright and author, whose major works include "Boathouse" (1989) and "Melancholy" I and II (1995-1996), was honoured "for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable", the Nobel Prize jury said.

Fosse's name has regularly featured in Nobel predictions, and his Norwegian publishing house Samlaget had prepared a press release before the announcement.

"I am overwhelmed and grateful. I see this as an award to the literature that first and foremost aims to be literature, without other considerations," Fosse said in the statement.

Fosse will receive his prize, which comes with a medal and a prize sum of 11 million Swedish kronor (about $1 million), from King Carl XVI Gustaf at a formal ceremony in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of scientist and inventor Alfred Nobel.

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