Poetry, boredom and serious illness. Quotes of the Nobel laureate in literature

The 2026 Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Canadian writer Anne Carson, a choice attributed to her "bold and innovative creativity" that combines images and motifs of mythology, as well as ancient and modern literature, which breaks down time boundaries. Carson is not only a writer, but also a poet and translator. RBC collected her quotes about her work, life and the consequences of a serious ailment - Parkinson's disease, and also asked experts how they assess the decision to give the award to the writer.

About awarding the Nobel Prize in Literature

Carson’s first reaction was to joke that those who made the awards were “going crazy.”.

I think they [the Nobel committee] are all crazy. Well, you know, it's crazy

However, as it turned out, the writer was warned about the award even before the official announcement. “She only had time to tell me that she is now in Iceland listening to the wind,” said Ingrid Karlberg, secretary of the Nobel Prize-winning Swedish Academy.

About the creative process

“It’s like stalking, like if a fox runs through your yard and you decide to go after it to find out where it lives. It's just like following the trail

In the same interview with The Paris Review where it was said, Carson admitted that she likes to paint and clean. She added that she is fond of swimming and in terms of inspiration it is similar to how ideas come in a dream.

“Ideas that come to mind in a pool are like those that occur in a dream. You have a thought that answers all the questions that ever arise in reality; you stagger, you get up, you write it down, and in the morning it looks like something like "Let's buy bananas" or something completely unimportant

The Difference Between Prose and Poetry

“If prose is a house, then poetry is a man on fire running through it.”

In a 2016 interview with The Guardian, Carson recounted how she came to write poetry. She admitted that she liked to draw, but it turned out bad, then began to sign her drawings and it turned into writing. Although the two types of creative activity are not related, they can enrich each other.

Separately, Carson mentioned in that conversation that she does not believe that art cures.

I don’t believe in art as therapy

Boredom and death

In an interview with the Canadian literary magazine Brick, Carson was asked about her phrase that avoiding boredom is the main task in life.

“I don’t think I get bored easily, but I’m afraid of boredom.” Mainly because it is a near-death condition

In 2024, Carson talked about a way to “stop time.” She talked about focusing a person’s attention, such as watching a movie or writing “my best poem.”.

“I am only interested in one thing: how to stop time. Because when it doesn't stop, it's boring

About the disease and deterioration of handwriting

In 2024, Carson spoke publicly about her diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. NBC cites her quote about how it affected her handwriting.

“It’s hard to describe and explain how shameful it is to have bad handwriting.” Bad handwriting is terrible. Besides, it's not genuine, in the sense that it's not you

The love of Iceland

Born in Canada, Carson works in both her homeland and the United States, but in 2022 she received Icelandic citizenship. In one interview, the writer complained that he considers America too “cluttered” vegetation.

“Everywhere there are trees, plants, flowers. It's just empty. There's lava, there's sea. There are only lines. Empty space"

Carson is a good poet, who received the award deservedly, the combination of lyrics and epics in her work is unusually impressive, Andrei Astvatsaturov, writer, philologist, professor of St. Petersburg State University (SPbU), told RBC.

“First, it is very important that [the prize] was given to the poet. The Nobel Committee does not forget that poetry is a more important art in literature than prose, because it prevents the aging of language. And, secondly, it is very important that Anne Carson updates not only the classical English-language tradition of verlibrists, but also integrates the discoveries of Greek poets into her texts. She has a lot of Greek myths, all this is retold by verlibras, all this is lyrical and epic at the same time.

Astvatsaturov added that he does not see any policy in such a choice of the winner. “That is, for the first time in many years, indeed, the Nobel Committee was engaged in what is needed, that is, to find out the value of the writer’s language,” he said.

In the work of Carson there is a game “with an ancient metaphor, which is placed in a modern innovative form”, but there is a lot of this in literature and in painting, said in a conversation with RBC the founder and director of the school “Good text”, philologist and translator Maria Golovanivskaya. “Yes, the texts can be read, but no one, I don’t think, will read them. Not a single quote, some apt image, some piercing thought, she points out.

This does not mean that Carson’s literature is bad, it is good, but “there is a lot of such literature, oddly enough,” Golovanivskaya noted. Separately, she expressed the opinion that the choice of the Nobel Committee is motivated by “very general vague formulations, which, in general, have little relation to literature,” and the composition of decision-makers does not seem expert.