On 8th October, the Swedish Academy announced that Canadian poet and writer Anne Carson is the winner of the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature for her bold and innovative body of work.

Carson is recognised for the synthesis of poetry, prose, translation, criticism and other literary genres. The Academy commended her for her innovation and originality in creating new forms of modern literature, which were inspired by classical literature.

Carson was born in Toronto, but spent time in Iceland learning about the Nobel Prize. Her classical Greek texts are all translated and re-interpreted, and she is widely recognised for their influence on her writing.

She is best known for her novel-in-verse, Autobiography of Red (1998), based on a mythological tale. Other titles are The Albertine Workout and Norma Jeane Baker of Troy, which parallels Helen of Troy with Marilyn Monroe.

According to the Swedish Academy, Carson’s work takes a look at the relationship between language and classical literature, and novel forms of meaning. Her writing has gone beyond the confines of a traditional literary genre, making her easy to misclassify.

Carson has additionally been a professor of classics at Canadian and American universities, and has been named a writer and visual artist. She has addressed the impact of Homer and other classical writers on her writing.

The literature prize was the fourth of this year’s four Nobel prizes, after the medicine, physics and chemistry prizes. The announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize will be made separately.

Carson is far from the only famous author to have won the award, which has been awarded to writers like Alice Munro, Ernest Hemingway, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature last year.