Canadian writer Anne Carson won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy announced in Stockholm on Thursday. The 76-year-old Toronto-born author was honored for her bold and inventive work, which the academy described as a playful dialogue with classical tradition that creates new forms for contemporary literature.
Carson, who now lives in Reykjavik, said she was listening to the wind when the academy’s permanent secretary, Ingrid Carlberg, called to inform her of the award. “I still think it’s crazy,” she told Expressen on Friday . She added that she did not yet know if she would attend the December 10 ceremony in Stockholm.
Her publisher, New Directions, has now seen two of its authors win the Nobel in as many years, the New York Times reported on Thursday . Carson first gained wide recognition in 1998 with *Autobiography of Red*, a novel in verse that reimagines the myth of Herakles and Geryon as a love story between two adolescents, blending poetry and prose. Romanian cultural commentator Sînziana Mocanu noted the book’s exploration of eroticism and queer symbolism .
Carson, a poet, essayist, translator, and classicist, told Finnish media she had no interest in making “significant” work and advised readers and writers to “start in the middle” . She rarely gives interviews and agreed to speak with the Nobel committee only at her husband’s urging.
