Anne Carson Awarded The Nobel Prize In LIterature For 2026

Canadian poet, essayist and translator Anne Carson has been awarded this year's Nobel Prize in Literature!

Carson’s decades-long career has combined poetry writing with translation work and teaching at various universities. The Nobel Prize committee said she had been selected for her “bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature".

Almost all her literary production has centred upon the intersection between the philologist’s obsession with words and the poet’s desire for new meaning. She has herself identified the etymology of words as the starting point for all her work.

New to Anne Carson and not sure where to begin? We recommend starting with Autobiography of Red, an extraordinary epic poem that bridges the gap between classicism and the modern, and between poetry and prose, with a volcanic journey into the soul of a mythic, winged red monster named Geryon. Other staff favourites include The Beauty of the Husband, Wrong Norma and If Not, Winter.