Canadian Poet Anne Carson Wins the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature
The Swedish Academy on 8 October 2026 awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature to Anne Carson, a 76-year-old Canadian poet, essayist, classicist and translator born in Toronto, with her genre-bending verse novel 'Autobiography of Red' singled out among her works. The announcement was made by Permanent Secretary Ingrid Carlberg, and the prize carries 12 million Swedish kronor (about USD 1.2 million). Carson becomes only the third Canadian literature laureate, after Saul Bellow (1976) and Alice Munro (2013). She succeeds 2025 laureate Laszlo Krasznahorkai and joins a Nobel week that closes with the Economic Sciences prize on 12 October.
The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded by the Swedish Academy, founded in 1786 by King Gustav III, and not by the Nobel Foundation itself | Rabindranath Tagore won the 1913 Literature Nobel for Gitanjali and remains the only Indian literature laureate | V. S. Naipaul (2001) and Rudyard Kipling (1907) are India-born or India-linked literature laureates of other nationalities