Anne Carson (76), who was honored with the Nobel Prize in Literature on the 8th, is a poet, classicist, translator, and essayist representing 20th century Canadian literature.
He has built a unique literary world by freely crossing the boundaries between ancient and modern literature, poetry and prose, creation and criticism, and translation.
It has been 13 years since Alice Monroe won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 for a Canadian writer. She is the 19th female recipient of the award.
Anne Carson was born on June 21, 1950 in Toronto, Canada.
Carson's father was a bank manager, and due to frequent transfers, his family lived in small towns in Ontario. It is analyzed that his childhood experience of not being able to take root in one place is not unrelated to his sense of being an outsider, which is later repeated in his literature.
More than anything, what changed Carson's fate was the collection of Sappho's poems that he encountered while he was in high school. Sappho is a Greek female poet known to have been active around the 6th century BC.
Carson, who was fascinated by the world of classical literature through Sappho, asked his Latin teacher in high school to learn ancient Greek during lunch breaks. This is because there were no regular ancient Greek classes at school.
This experience led him into the world of classical studies. Afterwards, Carson majored in classics at the University of Toronto. But college life was not smooth. Although he dropped out of college twice, he eventually received a doctorate in classics in 1981.
This doctoral thesis later led to his first book, ‘Eros, Bittersweet’ (1986).
This book, which explores love and desire from the perspective of ancient Greek literature, shows that Carson is not just a classicist, but a writer who uniquely connects classics and modern times.
Carson also taught classics at several universities in Canada and the United States, including McGill University, Emory University, Princeton University, University of Michigan, and New York University.
In his writings, Carson used to introduce himself like this. “I was born in Canada, and I make a living teaching ancient Greek.”
His first poetry collection, 'Short Stories' (1992), followed by 'Glass, Irony, and God' (1995), served as an opportunity to solidify his position in the field of modern poetry.
In particular, 'Autobiography in Red' (1998) is the work that catapulted him to the ranks of world-renowned writers.
It is a work that rewrites Greek mythology from the perspective of Geryon, the 'red monster' whom Hercules shot and killed with an arrow. This book is characterized by breaking down the boundaries between verse and prose, narrative and lyricism, and reconstructing the classics with a modern sensibility.
Afterwards, 'The Beauty of a Husband' (2001) gave her the honor of being 'the first woman to win the T. S. Eliot Award'.
'Nox' (2010) received attention as an experimental book written in memory of her brother who suddenly passed away.
Carson also won the A.M. Award for 'Glass, Irony and God' in 1996. Won the Klein Award. In addition, he received numerous awards, including the MacArthur Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship, and Griffin Poetry Award.
In 2020, he received the Duke of Asturias Award awarded by the heir to the Spanish throne, receiving praise for “building innovative poetics through classical research and enabling awareness of the present era.”
Books translated into Korea include 'Eros, Bittersweet', 'Short Stories', 'Glass, Irony and God', 'Plain Water' (published by Lee Sang-na), 'Autobiography of Red', 'The Beauty of My Husband', 'Red Doc' (published by Hankyoreh Publishing), 'Float', and 'Nox' (published by Lee Sang-na).
Jeong Eun-gui, a professor in the Department of English and American Literature and Culture at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, said, “Anne Carson is a writer who unearths language, awakens us to a world we have forgotten, and invites us to look at the present again through that awakening.” He added, “If I were to put it in one word, Anne Carson is an ‘archaeologist of language.’”
Professor Jeong also said that he predicted that among Canadian writers, Margaret Atwood and Anne Carson would be winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature this year, adding, "It seems that the Academy has evaluated Anne Carson's intellectual and experimental aspects more highly."
