Canadian poet, essayist, classics professor and translator Anne Carson won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature.
The award, announced Thursday at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, was given to Carson “for bold and imaginative works that create new forms for contemporary literature in an entertaining dialogue with the classical tradition.” Carson became the 19th woman to win.
Carson’s highly acclaimed works include the poetic novel “The Autobiography of Red” and its sequel “The Red Paper>”; his seminal book in the field of literary criticism, “Bittersweet Eros”; poetry collections such as “Glass, Irony and God,” which includes “Essay on Glass,” and the narrative poetry collection “The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos,” winner of the TS Eliot Prize; the haunting accordion-twist dirge “Nox”; and his widely praised translation of the surviving fragments of Sappho, “If Else, Winter.”
Anders Olsson, who serves as the chairman of the Nobel Literature Committee of the Swedish Academy, said, “He published his doctoral thesis in the field of classics in 1981, and throughout his career he combined poetry writing with translation work and teaching at various universities” and presented the award. “Almost all of his literary production focused on the intersection between the philologist’s passion for words and the poet’s desire for new meaning.
“Throughout his entire writing career, Carson explores the possibilities of writing with a light touch, a process in which the literary sketch became a particular asset to him. He moved into a variety of artistic fields in his collaborations with visual artists and choreographers, as well as opera and theater directors, which gave his writing a strong performative edge,” Olsson continued. “This demonstrates his freedom to engage with literary expectations and rule systems, which lies behind the extraordinary prominence his work has had on the international art and literary scene since the 1990s.”
Nobel committee member Steve Sem-Sandberg said Carson was a “writer for our time” unique in his ability to connect antiquity with contemporary ways of life. Sem-Sandberg admired the way Carson used myths, characters, stories, and tales from that period and placed them in a modern context. “The mixture of the two gives his writing tremendous energy,” he said. “No one writes like him, and I think no one would dare to do it that way.”
Carson was sipping tea and eating crackers at her seaside home in Iceland (she also lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she teaches) after getting the big news. He said he was considering ways to award the prize of 12 million Swedish krona ($1.2 million). “We have a friend who needs a home, and we always give a lot to Médecins Sans Frontières,” he said. He also planned to celebrate by going for a walk in the woods and turning off the phone.
Carson’s first reaction was surprise. “Who would have expected this? For God’s sake!”