Canadian poet Anne Carson wins the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature

Canadian poet Anne Carson wins 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.”The prize, which will be awarded on December 10 in Stockholm, carries a monetary award of €1 million ($1.2 million) and is the highest distinction in literature.The news reached Carson while she was in Iceland “listening to the wind,” according to the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, who said the writer was “taken by surprise but very happy.” The author of such groundbreaking and imaginative works as the verse novel Autobiography of Red and Nox, her elegy for her late brother presented in a box with accordion-fold pages forming a single continuous text, Carson has received numerous honors, including Spain’s Princess of Asturias Award for Literature in 2020. A classical scholar with a deep knowledge of ancient languages, the poet and translator has balanced writing with teaching throughout her career. Her books forge connections between the Greek classics and the intimate concerns of contemporary poetry. Playful and ironic, classical and modern, Carson’s work has left an indelible mark on contemporary literature.Created by Alfred Nobel, the prize was first awarded in 1901 and has since been given to 122 writers. It has not been awarded on seven occasions, while four awards have been shared by two laureates in the same year. Thursday’s announcement concludes a lengthy selection process in which institutions and scholars are invited by the Swedish Academy to submit nominations. More than 200 nominations are received, but after successive rounds of consideration by the Nobel Committee, which currently has seven members, five finalists remain. The Swedish Academy’s 17 members then vote to select the winner, who is informed of the decision shortly before the public announcement.In recent years, the prize has gone to Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai (2025), South Korean author Han Kang (2024) and Norwegian novelist and playwright Jon Fosse (2023), adding their names to a distinguished list of laureates that includes Gabriel García Márquez, Samuel Beckett, Thomas Mann, Alice Munro and William Faulkner.This is a breaking story. Please refresh your browser for more updates.