Anne Carson wins 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature

Canadian poet, essayist and classicist Anne Carson has won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy announced Thursday. The academy honored the 76-year-old “for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature.”

Born in Toronto, Carson is known for combining poetry, prose, dialogue, criticism and translation. Her work draws extensively on ancient Greek literature and mythology, and includes opera libretti, essays and verse novels. Her best-known book, *Autobiography of Red*, published in 1998, reimagines the myth of Geryon as the story of a modern teenage boy confronting desire and heartbreak.

Carson’s other works include *Eros the Bittersweet*, *The Beauty of the Husband*, *Decreation*, *Nox*, *Red Doc>* and *Float*. She became the first woman to win the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2001 and has received Guggenheim and MacArthur fellowships.

Ingrid Carlberg, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said Carson was surprised when notified and was in Iceland, “where she’s listening to the wind.” Carson, who has also held Icelandic citizenship since 2022, will receive the prize, worth 12 million Swedish kronor, at a ceremony in Stockholm in December.