Literature · Oct 8, 2026

Anne Carson

“for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature”

Key work

Eros the Bittersweet, her first book, 1986

c. 1965Finds Willis Barnstone's bilingual Sappho in a Hamilton, Ontario mall
1966In Port Hope, her Latin teacher Alice Cowan teaches her Greek over lunch
CollegeLeaves St. Michael's College twice, put off by a required Milton course. Works in graphic arts
1981PhD in classics, University of Toronto. Thesis title: Odi et Amo Ergo Sum
1979–87Teaches at Calgary, then Princeton, where she is denied tenure
1986Publishes Eros the Bittersweet, her first book
1987A year teaching classics at Emory
McGillDirector of Graduate Studies in Classics. John MacNaughton Professor from 2000
2003–09University of Michigan, across classics, comparative literature and English
Later13 years as Distinguished Writer in Residence at NYU

As a teenager she fancied herself a reborn Oscar Wilde, and owned an Oscar Wilde costume for special occasions.
Nox, one of her books, is an elegy for her brother, who died in 2000.
First woman to win the T. S. Eliot Prize, in 2001.
Autobiography of Red has sold nearly 100,000 copies in the US alone.
Her one rule for starting a book: “Start in the middle.”

First teacher: Alice Cowan, the Latin teacher Carson says she owes her career to
First spark: Willis Barnstone, translator of the Sappho she found
Partner and collaborator: Robert Currie; together they taught the “Egocircus” workshop at NYU