"It Seems A Little Insane": Anne Carson Was Sweeping Her Kitchen Floor When She Won Nobel

Anne Carson was sweeping the kitchen floor at her Reykjavik, Iceland, home when she received a morning phone call announcing her Nobel Prize in Literature. The Swedish Academy awarded Carson the prestigious prize on Thursday (Oct 8), praising her "bold and inventive oeuvre" for reshaping the boundaries of contemporary literature.

In a conversation with the Nobel Prize just moments after the announcement, Carson shared that she was avoiding the calls and if it wasn't for her husband, she wouldn't have received the news.

"I noticed the floor needed sweeping, so I leapt up to do that. And then there were all these phone calls, which I kept turning off because I just always turn off the phone when it rings," said Carson, as her husband interrupted: "So, I'm the husband, and you owe me because I'm the one who made her actually call back."

"Yeah, he answers the phone. I usually turn the phone off. He answers it and then makes me call back. Just seems a little insane. I think you're all insane," Carson added.

Quizzed about what the Nobel Prize meant to her, Carson, at her nonchalant best, said she was already thinking of ways to donate the award money.

"No. No, I don't. We are just thinking of ways to give the money away. We have a friend who needs a house, and we always give a lot to Doctors Without Borders," said Carson.

“It seems a little insane” Anne Carson was sweeping the kitchen floor at her home in Reykjavík, Iceland, when the phone rang and she learnt that she had been awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature. In this conversation with the Nobel Prize just moments after the announcement, Carson shares her advice for aspiring writers and reveals that she has already started planning how to give away the prize money.

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 8, 2026

Also Read | Anne Carson Wins Literature Nobel 2026: From Poetry To Prose, A Look At Her Notable Works

Who Is Anne Carson?

Born in Toronto in 1950, Carson's work spans poetry, prose and essays, often engaging with themes, texts, and myths from the ancient Greek world. Alongside her career as a writer, she is a professor of classics and widely known for her lectures on ancient Greek literature.

Carson published her doctoral thesis in Classics, 'Odi et Amo Ergo Sum' ('I Hate and I Love, Therefore I Am'), in 1981. She later reworked it into the essay 'Eros the Bittersweet', in which she developed many of the ideas about desire that would shape her later writing.