安妮·卡森斩获2026年诺贝尔文学奖
Anne Carson wins Nobel prize in literature 2026
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Part I. Passage
Anne Carson wins Nobel Prize in Literature 2026
Most prestigious literature prize goes to Canadian known for genre-crossing works such as Autobiography of Red.
The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to the Canadian poet and essayist Anne Carson, the Swedish Academy has announced.
The academy cited the author’s “bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature”.
The Nobel prize, regarded as the most prestigious award in global literature, is awarded for a lifetime body of work. The winner receives 12m Swedish kronor (£900,000).
Ingrid Carlberg, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said she had told Carson of the award on the phone shortly before the news broke. “She had time to tell me that she is, for the moment, in Iceland, where she is listening to the wind,” Carlberg said. “She was taken by surprise but very happy. I could hear that in her voice.”
Born in Toronto in 1950, Carson is known for work that moves freely between poetry, prose and translation, drawing heavily on the literature and mythology of the ancient Greek world. She has been a professor of classics at various institutions including Princeton, New York University and McGill University in Montreal. She is the 19th woman to win, out of 123 literature laureates.
Carson’s first book, Eros the Bittersweet, was published in 1986 and combined literary criticism with an exploration of desire and the ancient Greek tradition.
Her best-known work is Autobiography of Red, a 1998 novel in verse inspired by the fragments of the ancient Greek poet Stesichorus. It reimagines the myth of Geryon, the red-winged monster killed by Herakles, as the story of a modern teenage boy navigating heartbreak and desire.
In 2001, she became the first woman to win the TS Eliot Prize, for her collection The Beauty of the Husband. She has also been awarded Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellowships.
The Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, congratulated the poet on X after the announcement. “With wit, imagination, and a style entirely her own, Canadian poet Anne Carson has reimagined the classics. She has brought ancient stories to new audiences and transformed the way we think about literature,” he said, adding that it was a “proud moment for Canada”.
David Leonard, the executive director of the Writers’ Trust of Canada, said: “Anne is such a brilliant writer. Her work is broad, but also extremely smart.” Calling Carson’s work “intoxicating”, he said her four-decade career had resulted in a peerless collection of poems and essays. “They’re beautiful, they’re smart, they’re true and they are humane. It’s exactly what we need in our writing.”
Carson’s work has attracted praise from fellow writers including Susan Sontag, who once said: “She is one of the few writers writing in English that I would read anything she wrote. If there’s a magazine that has something of hers in it, I buy it automatically.”
Anders Olsson, the chair of the Swedish Academy’s Nobel Committee for Literature, praised Carson for work that had “broken away from lyrical poetry bound to the narrative self and inspired new forms of contemporary literature”. He said: “This method of writing leads to playful and ironic works that move not only between classical and modern poetry but also between different genres and artforms.”
Carson’s books have ranged widely in form. Men in the Off Hours combined verse essays, poems, epitaphs and prose about artists and historical figures, and won the inaugural Griffin poetry prize in 2001. Decreation, another eclectic work, brought together poetry, essays and an opera.
Nox, published in 2010, is particularly characteristic of Carson’s avant-garde approach to literature – the book takes the form of an accordion-fold box containing a reproduction of a notebook Carson made after the death of her brother. Her later works include Red Doc> and Float.
In a Guardian review of Red Doc>, Sarah Crown wrote: “To engage so fluidly, so originally and compellingly, with a story first told more than 3,000 years ago, is astonishing: her ambition is one thing; the fact that it is so completely achieved is, frankly, something else.”
Much of Carson’s work has emerged from her fascination with language itself. The Swedish Academy noted: “Almost all her literary production has centred upon the intersection between the philologist’s obsession with words and the poet’s desire for new meaning,” adding that Carson had identified the etymology of words as “the starting point for all her work”.
Asked why she continually moved between forms, Carson said in an interview: “Boredom, I guess. There is a restlessness. There are a lot of forms to try.”
She has acknowledged the difficulties that come with her experimental style. “ does fall apart a lot,” she said in a 2018 interview. “It gets just too weird for anyone to care about reading, or else it gets diluted into a sort of parody of itself.”
Ira Wells, the president of PEN Canada, said Carson’s win felt “particularly significant at a moment in which Canada and Europe are strengthening cultural ties amidst broader global disruption”. He added: “On an aesthetic level, Carson’s verse vibrates on profound human frequencies, at a moment in which more and more language is formulated by machines.”
Carson has generally kept her personal life out of interviews. However, in an August 2024 article for the London Review of Books, she disclosed that she had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded on 118 previous occasions since 1901. Recent laureates include Annie Ernaux, Bob Dylan, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Louise Glück, Peter Handke and Olga Tokarczuk. Last year’s recipient was the Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai, known for his dystopic and avant-garde writing.
Carson, 76, will formally receive the medal and diploma in a ceremony in Stockholm in December.
【Vocabulary】
1. inventive adj. 有创意的
2. oeuvre n. （作家、艺术家的）全部作品
3. kronor n. 瑞典克朗（瑞典货币单位，krona的复数）
4. mythology n. 神话
5. laureate n. 荣誉获得者
6. intoxicating adj. 使人陶醉的
7. epitaph n. 墓志铭，悼文
8. inaugural adj. 首次的
9. eclectic adj. 兼收并蓄的，博采众长的
10. Nox 《夜》（安妮·卡森的作品名）
11. avant-garde adj. 先锋的，前卫的
12. accordion-fold adj. 管风琴式折叠的
13. philologist n. 语文学家，语文研究者
14. etymology n. 词源学
15. parody n. 拙劣的模仿
16. recipient n. 接收者，获奖者
Part II. Questions
Q1. Why did the Swedish Academy award the Nobel Prize in Literature to Anne Carson?
A. Her works mainly focus on modern Canadian local stories.
B. She has created new literary forms by interacting with classical tradition.
C. She has translated a large number of ancient Greek literary works.
D. Her works have been widely popular among young readers worldwide.
Q2. What is Anne Carson’s best-known work Autobiography of Red?
A. A collection of ancient Greek poetry translations.
B. A prose collection recording her teenage life.
C. A literary criticism book about desire.
D. A novel in verse adapted from ancient Greek myth.
Q3. What special identity did Anne Carson have when winning the TS Eliot Prize in 2001?
A. The first Canadian winner of the prize.
B. The first female winner of the prize.
C. The oldest winner of the prize up to that year.
D. The first writer who won the prize for a poetry collection.
Q4. What does Anne Carson regard as the starting point of all her work?
A. The exploration of ancient Greek myths.
B. The study of word etymology.
C. The observation of modern social life.
D. The communication with other writers.
Q5. What can be inferred from Susan Sontag’s comment on Anne Carson?
A. Susan Sontag and Anne Carson are close friends.
B. Susan Sontag often recommends Carson’s works to readers.
C. Anne Carson’s works have a very high artistic quality.
D. Anne Carson only publishes her works in magazines.
Part III. KEY
Q1. B.【解析】细节题。题目出处：“The academy cited the author’s ‘bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature.’”意为：“瑞典科学院表彰这位作家‘大胆且富有独创性的全部创作，以灵动的方式与古典传统展开对话，为当代文学开创了全新文体。’”该句是瑞典科学院官方给出的直接获奖原因，因此正确答案为B。
Q2. D.【解析】细节题。题目出处：“Her best-known work is Autobiography of Red, a 1998 novel in verse inspired by the fragments of the ancient Greek poet Stesichorus. It reimagines the myth of Geryon, the red-winged monster killed by Herakles, as the story of a modern teenage boy navigating heartbreak and desire.” 意为：“她最广为人知的作品《红的自传》是1998年出版的诗体小说，创作灵感来自古希腊诗人斯特西科罗斯的作品残篇，它借用被赫拉克勒斯斩杀的红翼怪物革律翁的原型，把这个古希腊故事重构为一则现代少年经历心碎与探索欲望的成长故事。”这部分内容直接说明了《红的自传》的类型和创作来源，因此正确答案为D。
Q3. B.【解析】细节题。题目出处：“In 2001, she became the first woman to win the TS Eliot prize, for her collection The Beauty of the Husband.” 意为：“2001年，她凭借作品集《丈夫的美》成为首位获得T.S.艾略特奖的女性。”该句直接点明了她获得该奖项时的特殊身份，因此正确答案为B。
Q4. B.【解析】细节题。题目出处：“The Swedish Academy noted: ‘Almost all her literary production has centred upon the intersection between the philologist’s obsession with words and the poet’s desire for new meaning,’ adding that Carson had identified the etymology of words as ‘the starting point for all her work’.” 意为：“瑞典科学院指出，‘几乎她所有的创作都围绕着语文学者对词汇的痴迷与诗人对新意义的追求的交叉点’，同时补充说明，卡森本人将词汇的词源学研究视为‘她所有创作的起点’。”该句直接明确了卡森自己所认定的创作起点，因此正确答案为B。
Q5. C.【解析】推理题。题目出处：“Carson’s work has attracted praise from fellow writers including Susan Sontag, who once said: ‘She is one of the few writers writing in English that I would read anything she wrote. If there’s a magazine that has something of hers in it, I buy it automatically.’” 意为：“卡森的作品得到了包括苏珊·桑塔格在内的同行作家的赞誉，桑塔格曾说：‘在英语写作者当中，她是为数不多的几位，只要是她写的任何作品，我都愿意读。如果有杂志刊登了她的作品，我会毫不犹豫地主动买下来’。”苏珊·桑塔格是国际公认的著名作家、文学评论家，本身具备极高的文学审美和专业评判能力，她愿意主动阅读卡森的所有作品，甚至愿意为了她的作品特意购买杂志，足以说明卡森的作品得到了专业人士的高度认可，具备极高的艺术水准，因此正确答案为C。
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