Toronto poet Anne Carson wins 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature

TORONTO — Toronto-born poet Anne Carson has been awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Nobel Prize organizers lauded Carson "for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature."

The 76-year-old author, essayist, translator and professor has written more than 20 books and translations.

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She will receive a prize of 12 million Swedish kronor, which exchanges to approximately $1.71 million.

Carson's alma mater, the University of Toronto, celebrated the honour.

"On behalf of the University of Toronto, I am absolutely delighted to congratulate alumna Anne Carson on winning the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature," said U of T President Melanie Woodin.

"This is a very proud moment for our global alumni community and for the entire university."

Carson's previous accolades include Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellowships, a Lannan Literary Award, two Griffin Poetry Prizes, the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Princess of Asturias Award, the Governor General's Award for English-language poetry, the PEN/Nabokov Award, and she was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 2005.

She is the latest Canadian to join the list of Nobel laureates from the country.

Other Canadian literature winners include Saul Bellow, who won in 1976 for "the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work," and Alice Munro in 2013 for being the "master of the contemporary short story."

The first Canadian winner was Frederick G. Banting, who won the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1923 for the "discovery of insulin."

Canadian winners in physics include Donna Strickland in 2018 for co-developing a "method of generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses" and Arthur B. McDonald in 2015 for "the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass."

In chemistry, Canadian winners include Michael Smith in 1993 for his work on site-directed mutagenesis and John Polanyi in 1986 for contributions to chemical dynamics.

In economic sciences, recent Canadian winners include David Card in 2021 for research on labour markets and Peter Howitt in 2025 for "having explained innovation-driven economic growth."

The most recent Canadian winner before Carson was Geoffrey Hinton, known as the “godfather of AI,” who shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 2024 for work that laid the foundation for machine learning and neural networks.

The Canadian Press first published the list of Canadian Nobel laureates on Oct. 8, 2026.

With files from The Canadian Press, Narcity and blogTO