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Canadian poet Anne Carson wins 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature
The Swedish Academy announced Oct. 8 that Canadian poet and essayist Anne Carson won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Why it matters
The Swedish Academy announced in Stockholm on Oct. 8 that 76-year-old Canadian poet and essayist Anne Carson has won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature, "for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature." Carson joins Alice Munro as a Canadian recipient of the award. The prize is worth 12 million Swedish crowns (about US$1.2 million).
Full report
Born in Toronto in 1950, Carson learned ancient Greek as a high school student under a Latin teacher's guidance, an experience that shaped her life's work. She earned her B.A. in 1974, M.A. in 1975 and PhD in 1981 from the University of Toronto, taught classics at McGill, Princeton and the University of Michigan, and became an Icelandic citizen with her husband Robert Currie in 2022. Permanent Secretary Ingrid Carlberg said Carson was in Iceland "listening to the wind" when the Academy reached her with the news.
Her works include the 1998 verse novel "Autobiography of Red," "Men in the Off Hours" (winner of Canada's Griffin Prize for poetry in 2001), the 2019 performance piece "Norma Jeane Baker of Troy," and translations of classical Greek works including Sappho's fragments ("If Not, Winter"), Sophocles' "Electra" and "Antigone," and Euripides' "Bakkhai" — translations the Academy said "may be regarded as independent works in their own right." Committee chair Anders Olsson noted her work centres on "the intersection between the philologist's obsession with words and the poet's desire for new meaning." Carson had been among the bookmakers' favourites this year. The ceremony will be held Dec. 10.
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