“It seems a little insane” Anne Carson was sweeping the kitchen floor at her home in Reykjavík, Iceland, when the phone rang and she learnt that she had been awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature. In this conversation with the Nobel Prize just moments after the announcement, Carson shares her advice for aspiring writers and reveals that she has already started planning how to give away the prize money.

Just in! New Nobel Prize laureate in literature Anne Carson stands surprised in her kitchen in Reykjavík, Iceland. Stay tuned for our exclusive interview with her coming soon. Join us in congratulating our 2026 literature laureate - send your greetings in the comments.

Newly awarded #NobelPrize laureate Anne Carson published a series of notable works in the 1990s. Among these is ‘The Glass Essay’ in ‘Glass, Irony, and God’ (1995), which demonstrates the potential of the long poem where genre boundaries are seen to blur. The same decade saw the publication of another work, often heralded as Carson’s greatest, entitled ‘Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse’ (1998). Throughout her entire authorship, Carson with a light touch explores the possibilities of writing, a process by which the literary sketch has become of particular value to her. Her collaborations with visual artists and choreographers and with opera and theatre directors demonstrate the freedom with which she relates to literary expectations and rule systems. It is this that lies behind the outstanding importance her work since the 1990s has had for the international art and literature scene.