Poet, essayist, translator and former University of Michigan professor Anne Carson has received the Nobel Prize in Literature, one of the world's most prestigious literary honors.
Carson, who taught at the U-M College of Literature, Science, and the Arts from 2003 to 2009, is known for drawing on ancient Greek literature in her work and breaking traditional genre boundaries.
She received the award "for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature," the Nobel Prize committee said in its announcement on Oct. 8.
"We're grateful for her contributions at Michigan and how she enlightened students as a faculty member and mentor," U-M President Domenico Grasso said
in a news release.
Born in Toronto in 1950, Carson has many ties to Michigan. She moved to Ann Arbor to teach at U-M but remained there after she stopped teaching because she was in love with her house, a 2013 New York Times magazine profile of Carson said. She met her husband and frequent collaborator, Robert Currie, in Ann Arbor. Currie grew up in Michigan, the Times said.
Steve Sem-Sandberg, a member of the Nobel Committee for Literature, described Carson's work as connecting contemporary ways of living to stories ancient Greek literature.
"The mixture between those two gives an enormous energy," he said in a video interview after the award was announced. "Nobody writes like her, and nobody would even, I think, dare to do this in this way."
In a conversation with the Nobel Prize organization after the announcement, Carson, who took the call from Reykjavik, Iceland (where she primarily resides), called the news "a little insane."
Carson's books include "Eros the Bittersweet" (1986), "Glass, Irony, and God" (1995), "Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse" (1998), "Men in the Off Hours" (2000), "The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos" (2001), "Nox" (2010), "Float" (2016) and "Wrong Norma" (2024), the U-M news release said.
Contact Adrienne Roberts: amroberts@freepress.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Former U-M professor Anne Carson awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature
