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Anne Carson

Born

in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

June 21, 1950

Genre

Poetry, Classics, Nonfiction

Influences

Simone Weil ...more

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Anne Carson is a Canadian poet, essayist, translator, classicist, and one of the most distinctive contemporary writers in English. Born in Toronto in 1950, she studied Classics at the University of Toronto and has taught Ancient Greek and Classics at universities including McGill University, the University of Michigan, and Princeton University.

Carson’s work crosses conventional boundaries between poetry, fiction, essay, literary criticism, translation, drama, and visual art. Drawing extensively on Ancient Greek literature and philosophy, she frequently translates, reimagines, and places classical texts and figures in dialogue with modern life. Her writing combines scholarly erudition with formal experimentation and recurring concerns with l Anne Carson is a Canadian poet, essayist, translator, classicist, and one of the most distinctive contemporary writers in English. Born in Toronto in 1950, she studied Classics at the University of Toronto and has taught Ancient Greek and Classics at universities including McGill University, the University of Michigan, and Princeton University.

Carson’s work crosses conventional boundaries between poetry, fiction, essay, literary criticism, translation, drama, and visual art. Drawing extensively on Ancient Greek literature and philosophy, she frequently translates, reimagines, and places classical texts and figures in dialogue with modern life. Her writing combines scholarly erudition with formal experimentation and recurring concerns with love, desire, loss, beauty, grief, memory, and language. Her fusion of classical scholarship and literary invention has made her one of the most influential genre-defying writers of her generation.

Her major works include Eros the Bittersweet (1986), Glass, Irony and God (1992), Plainwater (1995), Autobiography of Red (1998), Economy of the Unlost (1999), Men in the Off Hours (2000), The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos (2001), Decreation (2005), Nox (2010), Antigonick (2012), Red Doc> (2013), Float (2016), Norma Jeane Baker of Troy (2019), and Wrong Norma (2024). She is also renowned for her translations and adaptations of Greek literature, including If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho and works by Sophocles and Euripides.

The Beauty of the Husband won the T. S. Eliot Prize, and Carson has also received the Griffin Poetry Prize, the Lannan Literary Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a MacArthur Fellowship. Her 2024 collection Wrong Norma was a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry and won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry.

In 2026, Carson was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature.” ...more

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Anne Carson’s books

Average rating: 4.28 · 128,078 ratings · 18,531 reviews · 92 distinct works • Similar authors

	Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse 4.24 avg rating — 39,392 ratings — published 1998 — 63 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos 4.21 avg rating — 9,275 ratings — published 2001 — 35 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Eros the Bittersweet 4.44 avg rating — 7,826 ratings — published 1986 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Glass, Irony and God 4.31 avg rating — 5,681 ratings — published 1995 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Nox 4.37 avg rating — 4,277 ratings — published 2010 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Plainwater: Essays and Poetry (By the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature) (Vintage Contemporaries) 4.25 avg rating — 3,912 ratings — published 1995 — 19 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Antigonick by Anne Carson (Adapter), Sophocles, Bianca Stone (Illustrator) 4.32 avg rating — 3,656 ratings — published 2012 — 21 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Red Doc> 4.08 avg rating — 3,855 ratings — published 2013 — 26 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	An Oresteia by Anne Carson, Aeschylus, Euripides 4.38 avg rating — 3,441 ratings — published 2009 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera (By the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature) (Vintage Contemporaries) 4.18 avg rating — 2,557 ratings — published 2005 — 19 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Anne Carson…

Series by Anne Carson

Red (2 books)
by

Anne Carson

4.23 avg rating — 43,223 ratings

Berliner Rede zur Poesie 2020 (1 book)
by

Anne Carson

3.78 avg rating — 9 ratings

Quotes by Anne Carson (?)

“You remember too much,
my mother said to me recently.
Why hold onto all that? And I said,
Where can I put it down?”
― Anne Carson, Glass, Irony and God

tags: burdens, memory, poems, poetry, remembering

1073 likes

“Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief.”
― Anne Carson (Translator), Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides

838 likes

“To feel anything
deranges you. To be seen
feeling anything strips you
naked. In the grip of it
pleasure or pain doesn’t
matter. You think what
will they do what new
power will they acquire if
they see me naked like
this. If they see you
feeling. You have no idea
what. It’s not about them.
To be seen is the penalty.”
― Anne Carson, Red Doc>

tags: lovers

430 likes

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Polls

What book would you like to read for April's group read? The theme is poetry.

Matchedby Ally Condie

21 votes 22.8%

The Standby Stephen King

20 votes 21.7%

Soldby Patricia McCormick

14 votes 15.2%

Crush by Richard Siken

8 votes 8.7%

Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson

6 votes 6.5%

Slammed by Colleen Hoover

6 votes 6.5%

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino

5 votes 5.4%

Risking Everything: 110 Poems of Love and Revelation by Roger Housden

5 votes 5.4%

Stoner by John Edward Williams

5 votes 5.4%

My American Kundiman by Patrick Rosal

2 votes 2.2%

92 total votes

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Anne Carson

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