Guwahati: Canadian author Anne Carson has been awarded 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 Swedish Academy announced in Stockholm on Thursday.
Carson, born in Toronto in 1950, published a series of notable works during the 1990s and has throughout her career explored the possibilities of writing, often placing particular emphasis on the literary sketch.
Among her best-known works is The Glass Essay, published in Glass, Irony, and God in 1995. The work demonstrates the possibilities of the long poem, with boundaries between literary genres becoming less distinct.
Her 2001 work, The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos, centres on a troubled relationship with a deceitful husband. Its 29 sections each open with lines by the Romantic poet John Keats, juxtaposing his writing on beauty and truth with the narrator’s relationship drama.
Carson completed her doctoral thesis in Classics, Odi et Amo Ergo Sum, in 1981. Throughout her career, she has combined poetry with translation and teaching at various universities.
Much of her literary work has focused on the intersection of philology and poetry, particularly the relationship between the study of words and the creation of new meanings. Carson has identified the etymology of words as the starting point for her work.
Last year, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai for his works on “apocalyptic terror”.
The 2026 Nobel announcements began with the Prize in Physiology or Medicine, awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for discoveries leading to optogenetics, a technique that allows selected nerve cells to be controlled using light.
Francis Halzen received the Nobel Prize in Physics for contributions to the IceCube neutrino observatory at the South Pole and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin. The Chemistry Nobel was awarded to Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai for work on mirror images in molecules.
The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on October 9, while the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences will be announced on October 12.
The Nobel laureates will receive a cash award of 12 million Swedish kronor, or about 1.2 million dollars. The awards will be presented on December 10, Nobel Prize Day and the death anniversary of Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel.