'I think they're all crazy': Canadian poet Anne Carson wins Nobel Prize in Literature while 'listening to the wind' in Iceland

From the Newshound archive · first published 8 October 2026 · last updated 9 October 2026.

Anne Carson, 76, was in Iceland "listening to the wind" when the Swedish Academy called to tell her she had won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature, worth £900,000. The Toronto-born poet, essayist and translator was cited for her "bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature." She told Icelandic broadcaster RUV she would get "a sticker on the front of my book."

Carson, who revealed she has Parkinson's disease in a 2024 essay, is only the 19th woman to win the prize in 123 years of the award.

Academy committee member Steve Sem-Sandberg said her books belong on "a shelf of her own" — no bookseller's genre can contain her.

Carson quipped that poetry beats prose right now "because it's faster, and everybody is in a hurry — except Homer. Homer's not brief."