Anne Carson wins the 2026 Nobel Prize for Literature: who is the essayist and poet

Anne Carson won the 2026 Nobel Prize for Literature. The Canadian poet and essayist was considered one of the favorites of the day before: she is the author of Come l'acqua and Era unacloud, published in Italy by Crocetti, but also of Autobiografia del rosso (The Ship of Theseus). The Swedish Academy awarded her "for her bold and creative work which, in a playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has given rise to new forms for contemporary literature".

Who is Anne Carson

Anne Carson was born on June 21, 1950 in Toronto, Canada. As reported in her biography on the Nobel Prize website, "throughout her career she has combined poetic writing with translation work and teaching at various universities. Almost all of her literary production is based on the encounter between the philologist's obsession with words and the poet's desire to find new meanings. She herself identified the etymology of words as the starting point of all her works."

The works of Anne Carson

Anne Carson is the author of experimental works in which she mixes poetry, prose and theatre. In Italy some of his works have recently been translated, many years after the original edition. Professor of classics, she is an expert in particular on Sappho and Euripides. He won two Griffin Poetry Prizes and the Pricipessa delle Asturie Prize in 2020. Among his books published in Italy are Come l'acqua (2025) and Era una nuova (2021), both published by Crocetti and Autobiografia del rosso, published by La Nave di Teseo. For La Tartaruga the fictional essay The Beauty of the Husband was released in 2022 and for Utopia editions Decreazione arrived in Italian bookstores in 2023.

The reaction to the victory

Carson learned he had won the award shortly before the official announcement. “She took the time to tell me that, at the moment, she is in Iceland, listening to the wind,” said Ingrid Carlberg, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, who spoke to the poet on the phone at a press conference. "She was surprised, but very happy. I could feel it in her voice."

The women winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature

So far, 18 women, out of 122 winners, have received the Nobel Prize for Literature: the last to win it was the South Korean writer Han Kang in 2024 and the first Selma Lagerlof in 1909. The only Italian is Grazia Deledda whose one hundredth anniversary of the award was celebrated in 1926. Even if the number of winners has increased in recent times, very few women graduates remain with the most important literary recognition.