Anne Carson calls Swedish Academy 'crazy' in first Nobel interviews

On 10 October 2026 the first full-length interviews with 76-year-old Canadian poet, classicist and essayist Anne Carson, named the 2026 Nobel laureate in literature two days earlier, were carried internationally. Speaking to Icelandic public broadcaster RUV and to Nobel organisers, Carson said of the Academy's decision, 'They're all crazy', and described the award as 'a little insane'. She recounted being at home sweeping her kitchen in Reykjavik when the Academy's call came, and only phoned back because her husband Robert Currie insisted. Asked how the Nobel might change her readership, she replied, 'I'll get a sticker on the front of my books.' She also argued poetry suited a hurried age: 'I think it's probably more useful than prose right now because it's faster and everybody's in a hurry.' The Swedish Academy honoured Carson 'for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature'. Toronto-born Carson draws on ancient Greek and Roman literature and blends poetry, essay and fiction in works including 'Eros the Bittersweet', the verse novel 'Autobiography of Red' and 'Men in the Off Hours', winner of Canada's 2001 Griffin Prize.