The Playful Writer: What Anne Carson Taught Me

The 2026 Nobel Prize for Literature went to Anne Carson.

Join Srilata Krishnan for a talk about Carson’s work and what writers and artists can learn from it. Carson’s training was in the classics, which spurred in her a wide-ranging interest in comparative literature, anthropology, history and the arts. Hers is a quintessentially interdisciplinary mind, and her work feels like jewels studded with the gemstones of ancient Greek and Latin literature (Sappho, Catullus, Stesichorus, for instance) and of writers such as Virginia Woolf, Keats and Gertrude Stein.

Formally, her work may be best described as cross-genre. It is the spirit of playfulness and enquiry that drives all of Carson’s work, making each of her books different from the others. Her playfulness precludes neither depth nor rigour, as borne out by every single work of hers.

As a writer, Srilata has learnt a lot about craft from Carson and will be sharing the subtle ways in which reading Carson helped shape her own writing.

This lecture is organised in collaboration with Infosys Science Foundation.