Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Canadian author Anne Carson for creating ‘new forms for contemporary literature’ through her work.
Last year, Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai won the literature Nobel for his surreal and anarchic novels, which combine a bleak view of the world with dark humour. Three science Nobel Prizes were announced earlier this week. Much of her career has focused on the relationship between words, their origins and the search for new meanings. She has since taught at several universities while producing poetry and translations from Classical Greek. The book established an approach that became central to her writing: bringing different voices, periods and literary traditions together. Through collaborations across literature, visual art, theatre and opera, Carson has continued to challenge conventional literary forms. The Nobel Prize in medicine went to three scientists whose research led to a tool that uses light to help scientists understand how the brain works. The physics prize recognised a scientist for efforts to shed light on a rare group of neutrinos. The chemistry prize was awarded to two scientists for explaining mysterious mirror images in molecules, a discovery that has been used in the development of countless drugs. The amount is the same whether the award goes to an individual, a small group of laureates, or an organisation.
Anne Carson, born in 1950 in Toronto, Canada, is a poet, translator and academic whose work combines classical literature, poetry and contemporary writing. Carson published her doctoral thesis in Classics, Odi et Amo Ergo Sum, in 1981. Her translations include Sappho’s fragments in If Not, Winter (2002), as well as Sophocles’s Electra and Antigone, and Euripides’s Bakkhai. Her 1986 work Eros the Bittersweet explored Eros as a force driven by the combination of pain and sweetness. Among Carson’s best-known works are The Glass Essay (1995), Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse (1998), The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos (2001) and Nox (2010), written in memory of her brother Michael. Her later works include Float (2016) and Wrong Norma (2024). The prize money this year is 12 million Swedish kronor, or about $1.2 million.
The judges said his work upholds the power of art amid “apocalyptic terror”. The award was announced on Thursday by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm. The week will conclude with the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences will be announced on Monday.
