Canadian poet Anne Carson wins Nobel Prize in literature

Canadian poet Anne Carson won the Nobel Prize in Literature in Stockholm on Thursday for creating new forms for contemporary literature through playful dialogue with classical tradition. The 76-year-old laureate, who is currently in Iceland, was surprised and happy, the Swedish Academy said. Carson’s work explores love, desire, despair and the intersection of philology with poetic meaning.

Carson announced in 2024 that she has Parkinson’s disease.

Her 1998 work Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse reworked the Greek myth of Geryon and Herakles into a modern tale of a gay love triangle.

The Swedish Academy identified Nox, created in memory of Carson’s brother who died in 2000, as an unforgettable work presented as an accordion-fold publication containing pictures, letters and other texts.

Carson received the 1996 Lannan Award and the 1997 Pushcart Prize.

The Nobel Prize includes a diploma, a gold medal and $1.2 million, and Carson will receive the award from King Carl XVI Gustaf in Stockholm on December 10.

Published Oct 8, 2026 8:48 pm KST

Updated Oct 8, 2026 9:42 pm KST

Anne Carson attends the dedication ceremony for The Shed, a performing arts center at Hudson Yards, April 1, 2019, in New York. Anne Carson, Canadian poet and essayist, has won the 2026 Nobel Prize in literature. AP-Yonhap

STOCKHOLM — The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded on Thursday to Canadian poet Anne Carson, an essayist and classicist who brings a modern twist to mysticism and antiquity in her writings about love, desire and despair.

The 76-year-old — who announced in 2024 that she has Parkinson's disease — was honoured "for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature," the Swedish Academy said.

The permanent secretary of the Academy, Ingrid Carlberg, said she had briefly spoken to Carson.

"We didn't have so much time to speak. All she had time to tell me was that she is for the moment in Iceland, where she's listening to the wind."

"She was taken by surprise, but very happy. I could hear that in her voice."

A professor of classics with a background in dead languages, literature, anthropology and history, she was described by The New York Times in 2001 as "one of the great pasticheurs." Her unique contemporary poetry earned her several key literary prizes in the 1990s, including the 1996 Lannan Award and the 1997 Pushcart Prize.

A year later, "Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse" — loosely based on the Greek myth of the monster Geryon and Herakles but transformed into a modern tale of a gay love triangle — received widespread praise.

The Academy said almost all of Carson's literary production "has centred upon the intersection between the philologist's obsession with words and the poet's desire for new meaning." It singled out her poem "Nox," printed on one continuous sheet of paper in homage to her brother who died in 2000, as "an unforgettable work."

"Palpable here is a deep sense of loss that works its way up from below. The result is a creation as sculptural as it is literary, an epitaph in the form of a box containing an accordion-fold-out of pictures, letters and other written texts dedicated to her dead brother," the Academy said.

Carson has been mentioned as a possible Nobel laureate for years.

Copies of books by Anne Carson, winner of the 2026 Nobel Prize for Literature, are displayed at Waterstones bookshop in London, Thursday. Reuters-Yonhap

Women under-represented

Many literary critics had predicted the award would go to a woman this year, given the frequent criticism directed at the Academy over the overrepresentation of Western white men among its picks.

There have been just 19 women laureates out of 122 since the Nobel literature prize was first awarded in 1901.

A 2018 sex assault scandal left the Academy in tatters and more than half of its 18 members were replaced.

Since then, every other literature laureate has been a woman.

Last year, the award went to Hungary's Laszlo Krasznahorkai, whose works explore themes of postmodern dystopia.

The literature prize is the fourth of the six Nobels to be announced over the course of a week.

The winners of the medicine, physics and chemistry prizes were announced earlier this week in Stockholm, while the peace prize will be announced in Oslo on Friday.

Among those seen as possibilities are the Save the Children charity and Mykola Kuleba, a Ukrainian children's rights activist campaigning for the return of kids illegally taken to Russia from occupied territories.

Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms (ERR), a vast network of volunteers risking their lives to help people facing the double threat of war and hunger, could also be a potential laureate.

Yet others mentioned are the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese, Pope Leo XIV, press freedoms with an award to the Committee to Protect Journalists, or international justice bodies such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The Nobel economics prize will round up the 2026 awards season on Monday.

Each Nobel prize comes with a diploma, a gold medal and a $1.2 million prize sum, to be shared if there is more than one laureate in each discipline.

Carson will receive the award from King Carl XVI Gustaf in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of scientist and prize creator Alfred Nobel.

加拿大诗人安妮·卡森周四在斯德哥尔摩荣获诺贝尔文学奖，以表彰她通过与古典传统的巧妙对话，为当代文学创造了新的形式。瑞典文学院表示，这位现年76岁、目前身在冰岛的获奖者感到既惊喜又高兴。卡森的作品探讨了爱、欲望、绝望以及语言学与诗歌意义的交融。

卡森于2024年宣布自己患有帕金森病。

她 1998 年的作品《红色自传：一部诗体小说》将希腊神话中的革律翁和赫拉克勒斯的故事改编成了一个现代同性恋三角恋故事。

瑞典学院认为，《诺克斯》是为纪念卡森于 2000 年去世的兄弟而创作的，是一部令人难忘的作品，以折叠式出版物的形式呈现，其中包含图片、信件和其他文本。

卡森获得了 1996 年兰南奖和 1997 年普希卡特奖。

诺贝尔奖包括证书、金质奖章和 120 万美元奖金，卡森将于 12 月 10 日在斯德哥尔摩从国王卡尔十六世·古斯塔夫手中接过奖项。

发布于2026年10月8日晚上8:48（韩国标准时间）

更新于2026年10月8日晚上9:42（韩国标准时间）

2019年4月1日，安妮·卡森出席了位于纽约哈德逊广场的表演艺术中心“The Shed”的落成典礼。安妮·卡森是加拿大诗人兼散文家，荣获2026年诺贝尔文学奖。美联社-韩联社

斯德哥尔摩——周四，诺贝尔文学奖授予加拿大诗人安妮·卡森，她是一位散文家和古典学家，在她的关于爱情、欲望和绝望的作品中，为神秘主义和古代文化注入了现代气息。

这位 76 岁的作家于 2024 年宣布自己患有帕金森病。瑞典学院表示，她获此殊荣是“因为她大胆而富有创造力的作品，这些作品在与古典传统的轻松对话中，为当代文学创造了新的形式”。

学院常务秘书英格丽德·卡尔伯格表示，她曾与卡森简短交谈过。

“我们没有太多时间交谈。她只来得及告诉我，她现在在冰岛，正在聆听风的声音。”

“她很意外，但也非常高兴。我从她的声音里听出来了。”

她是一位古典学教授，拥有古代语言、文学、人类学和历史学的背景。2001年，《纽约时报》称她为“伟大的模仿者之一”。她独特的当代诗歌为她在20世纪90年代赢得了几项重要的文学奖项，包括1996年的兰南奖和1997年的普希卡特奖。

一年后，《红色的自传：一部诗体小说》——这部小说大致取材于希腊神话中怪物革律翁和赫拉克勒斯的故事，但被改编成一个现代同性恋三角恋故事——获得了广泛的赞誉。

学院表示，卡森几乎所有的文学作品“都围绕着语言学家对文字的痴迷与诗人对新意义的渴望之间的交集展开”。学院特别指出，她为纪念2000年去世的哥哥而创作的诗作《夜》（Nox）“令人难忘”。这首诗印在一张连续的纸上。

“这里可以明显感受到一种自下而上涌现的深深的失落感。最终的作品既具有雕塑感又具有文学性，它是一个盒子形式的墓志铭，里面装着折叠式的照片、信件和其他文字，献给她已故的哥哥，”学院表示。

多年来，卡森一直被认为是诺贝尔奖的有力竞争者。

周四，2026年诺贝尔文学奖得主安妮·卡森的作品在伦敦沃特斯通书店展出。（路透社-韩联社）

女性代表性不足

鉴于奥斯卡金像奖评选中西方白人男性比例过高，许多文学评论家预测今年的奖项将颁给一位女性。

自 1901 年诺贝尔文学奖首次颁发以来，122 位获奖者中只有 19 位是女性。

2018 年的性侵丑闻使学院分崩离析，18 名成员中有一半以上被替换。

此后，每一位获得文学奖的都是女性。

去年，该奖项颁给了匈牙利艺术家拉斯洛·克拉斯纳霍尔凯，他的作品探索了后现代反乌托邦的主题。

文学奖是本周将公布的六项诺贝尔奖中的第四项。

本周早些时候，医学奖、物理学奖和化学奖的获奖者在斯德哥尔摩公布，而和平奖将于周五在奥斯陆公布。

被视为可能的人选包括救助儿童会慈善机构和乌克兰儿童权利活动家米科拉·库列巴，他致力于争取将从被占领土非法带到俄罗斯的儿童送回国。

苏丹紧急救援室 (ERR) 是一个庞大的志愿者网络，他们冒着生命危险帮助面临战争和饥饿双重威胁的人们，该组织也可能获得该奖项。

还提到了其他一些人，例如联合国巴勒斯坦被占领土问题特别报告员弗朗西斯卡·阿尔巴内塞、教皇利奥十四世、新闻自由（并向保护记者委员会颁发了奖项）以及国际刑事法院（ICC）和国际法院（ICJ）等国际司法机构。

诺贝尔经济学奖将于周一揭晓，为2026年的颁奖季画上句号。

每项诺贝尔奖都包括一张证书、一枚金质奖章和 120 万美元的奖金，如果每个学科有多名获奖者，则奖金由获奖者平分。

卡森将于 12 月 10 日在斯德哥尔摩从国王卡尔十六世·古斯塔夫手中接过奖项，这一天也是科学家兼诺贝尔奖创始人阿尔弗雷德·诺贝尔于 1896 年逝世的周年纪念日。