Anne Carson

Anne Carson is a Canadian classicist, translator, poet, and essayist. An essential figure in the contemporary poetry scene, Carson is known for writing “unclassifiable” works that blend the genres of prose, poetry, and criticism. Her works frequently draw from Classical and Hellenistic literature, as well. Carson was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1950. A Latin instructor taught Carson Greek during lunch periods throughout high school, which inspired her to study Classics, and she went on to earn her BA, MA, and PhD in Classics from the University of Toronto. Carson published her first work of criticism, Eros the Bittersweet, in 1986. The poetic works Glass, Irony, and God (1992); Plainwater: Essays and Poetry (1995); and Men in the Off Hours (2001) followed. Although these works helped establish Carson as a unique voice in contemporary poetry, her most widely read works are the verse novels Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse (1998) and The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos (2001). She has also published numerous well-regarded translations of Classical writers, such as Euripides, Sophocles, and Sappho. Carson has received numerous awards and accolades throughout her career, including a Guggenheim Fellowship for Poetry in 1998 and a MacArthur Fellowship in 2000. She has taught in the Classics departments of universities throughout the United States and Canada, including Princeton University, the University of Michigan, and McGill University.