I was so delighted to see Anne Carson named this year's winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. I watched the announcement live, cheekily typing "JCO for the win" into the comments as always. But Carson had been one of my top predictions, so when Ingrid Carlberg, in her first year as the Academy's Permanent Secretary, read out her name, I was thrilled. The Academy honoured her "for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature." It was charming to hear that when they reached her by phone she was in Iceland "listening to the wind." I love picturing her running jubilantly across a glacier or, more likely, quietly sipping tea and staring out the window. She's the first Canadian to win since Alice Munro in 2013, the first poet since Louise Glück in 2020, and only the 19th woman to receive the prize. It's also one of those rare years when the betting got it right. The British bookies barely rated her, but the wider prediction markets had her as the favourite.

The only book of Carson's I've read is “Autobiography of Red”, and I found it incredibly inventive. It retells the myth of the red-winged monster Geryon as a gay coming-of-age story. She builds a modern, novel-like narrative out of the surviving fragments of the ancient poet Stesichorus. Although it's written in verse, I found it accessible and deeply moving. I connected with how she captures Geryon's alienation, his desire and his synaesthesia, and lines like "There is no person without a world" have stayed with me. My copy is even more special now because Carson signed it for me in 2019 when I saw her speak in London. It's striking how she mixes poetry, essay, translation, drama and visual art into new forms. Her elegy for her brother, “Nox”, is published as a folded facsimile in a box. She was reworking Greek myth with wit and intelligence long before myth retellings became a popular genre of their own.

This win has given me the push I needed to read much more of her work. Next I'd like to try “Nox” or “Norma Jeane Baker of Troy”. I also want to finally pick up “Glass and God”, which has been sitting on my shelf for far too long. If you've not read Carson before, I'd recommend starting with “Autobiography of Red”. Her UK publisher is Jonathan Cape, and I expect we'll see plenty of reprints in the coming weeks. Have you read Anne Carson? I'd love to hear how you feel about her winning, and which of her books you'd recommend I read next.

I’ve been meaning to begin reading Anne Carson’s poetry for some time. Multiple people recommended I start with “Autobiography of Red” and I’m so glad I read this incredibly inventive book! Carson translated the existing fragments of a poem about a red winged monster with a human face named Geryon which was written by the Greek lyric poet Stesichorus’ who lived from 630-555 BC. In the opening sections Carson imaginatively discusses Stesichorus’ life and the legend of his being rendered blind for insulting Helen of Troy. Carson has said she found it difficult to satisfactorily translate his writing successfully so she’s taken the liberty of imaginatively filling out the story of Geryon’s life in this epic narrative poem which reads more like a novella. It takes elements from Geryon’s story but inserts them into a blend of the modern and mythic following his relationship with his mother, sexual abuse by his brother and his romantic entanglements with a man named Herakles (in the myth Heracles kills Geryon by shooting him with an arrow.) It’s stunning how she captures the sensations of Geryon’s life and his unique perspective: his feelings of alienation, artistic aspirations and sexual yearnings. And it’s so beautifully written with many complex lines and metaphors that made me pause and think.

Carson sympathetically portrays Geryon’s gradual awareness of his otherness as he gets older. There the obvious differences in how he appears as his body is red and he possesses wings which he learns to conceal. But he also perceives the world in a different way and at some points Carson describes his synaesthesia so that he can hear “noise that colors make. Roses came roaring across the garden at him.” So Geryon becomes aware that he’s an outsider who can never fully integrate with the people around him or have a traditional relationship with Herakles. He’s a part of society but outside of it and learns he can’t live without it: “There is no person without a world.” Yet there’s a tremendous wellspring of emotion within him which is symbolised by a pilgrimage he and Herakles take to a volcano. He also takes up photography as if becoming an observer and recorder can emotionally remove him from reality.

This is book filled with so many profound and beautifully-made observations I’m sure I’ll return to it again and again.