To celebrate Anne Carson, 19 books by Nobel Prize–winning women beyond their most famous works

A little quiz before we dive into this piece. Which of the following is false? 1. Anne Carson was sweeping the kitchen floor at her home in Reykjavik, Iceland, when she received a call telling her that she had won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature. 2. Upon learning that she had won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature, Carson reacted with a monosyllabic “Yikes”. Neither. They’re both true. And for those who have writers for friends, neither is unbelievable.

Honoured on October 8 by the Swedish Academy for “her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature”, Carson has spent around four decades refusing to stay inside one genre. The 76-year-old Canadian poet, essayist and classicist has moved between poetry, essays, translations and forms with no settled names. But by becoming only the 19th woman to win in the 125 years since the first prize was awarded, Carson has unwittingly called the gender ratio of the Nobel Prize in Literature into question—as her predecessors’ victories did.

Until 2026, the Prize has been awarded to 123 recipients, only 19—or roughly 15%—of whom have been women. Many people have also noticed how, since 2018, the Academy, perhaps under pressure to rectify the gender disparity, has alternated between feting a woman and a man every year. It’s difficult to ascertain how much of this is progress and how much of it is performative, since it now seems like a woman’s chances of becoming a Nobel laureate depend on which year it is. The list is also skewed in another way. Of the 19 women to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, 16 have been white. Toni Morrison remains the only Black woman, Han Kang the only Asian woman, and Gabriela Mistral, of mestiza heritage, the only Latin American woman.

But victories like Carson’s are worth holding onto against the larger landscape of gender inequity and a general decline in reading. And now that the Nobel Prize will generate a new wave of curiosity around her work, it’s as good a time as any to familiarise yourself with her oeuvre. A literary prize ties a writer to one or two famous titles while the rest of their works slip into the background, often the very ones that could help you understand their full range. So to celebrate Carson’s achievement, we’ve picked 19 books by the women who have won the Nobel Prize in Literature through the years—not the titles you know them by, but the ones that helped them get there.

The Emperor of Portugallia by Selma Lagerlöf

Won in 1909