Anne Carson wins 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature

Canadian poet, essayist and translator Anne Carson has won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature for work that moves between poetry, fiction and classical scholarship, the Swedish Academy announced Thursday.

The academy selected Carson, 76, “for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature.” The prize, awarded for a lifetime of work, carries 12 million Swedish kronor, about $1.2 million.

Carson was in Iceland when Ingrid Carlberg, the academy’s permanent secretary, called with the news. “She was taken by surprise but very happy. I could hear that in her voice,” Carlberg told the BBC. Carson had told her she was “listening to the wind.”

Carson later gave Icelandic broadcaster RUV a brief reaction, according to Al Jazeera: “Crazy. I think they’re all crazy … Well, you know, it’s crazy.”

Born in Toronto in 1950, Carson lives in Michigan and has held Icelandic citizenship since 2022, the BBC reported. She has been a professor of classics for more than 30 years, and ancient Greek literature runs through much of her writing and translation.

“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,” the academy said, according to Al Jazeera. It added that her translations from Classical Greek “may be regarded as independent works in their own right.”

Her books include The Glass Essay, Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse, Nox, Float and The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos. Al Jazeera described The Beauty of the Husband as a book-length narrative poem about a doomed marriage and reported that Carson has written more than 20 books, some adapted for the stage.

Her engagement with ancient stories also reaches into performance and visual art. The BBC reported that her 2019 piece Norma Jeane Baker of Troy drew a connection between Helen of Troy and Marilyn Monroe. In 2021, she published The Trojan Women: A Comic, a graphic retelling of Euripides’ story. A translation of Sophocles’ Elektra by Carson was staged in London last year with Brie Larson, the BBC reported.

Anders Olsson, chairman of the academy’s Nobel committee for literature, said Carson has “broken away from lyrical poetry bound to the narrative self.” Her writing, he said, moves “between classical and modern poetry” and across genres and art forms. He also pointed to her collaborations with visual artists, choreographers and directors of opera and theater.

According to Al Jazeera, Carson disclosed in the London Review of Books in August 2024 that she was living with Parkinson’s disease. Last year’s literature prize went to Hungarian writer Laszlo Krasznahorkai.