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A Nobel winner’s novel in verse

Oct 9, 2026, 10:55am EDT
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Semafor Recommends Autobiography of Red

Autobiography of Red, by Anne Carson.

Through “47 compulsively readable long-lined poems of intense cinematic detail,” the Canadian writer — and winner of the 2026 Nobel Prize for Literature — retells the ancient Greek myth of Hercules and Geryon as a modern day queer love story, the British poet Ruth Padel wrote in a New York Times review of Carson’s 1998 novel. “Carson writes in language any poet would kill for: sensuous and funny, poignant, musical and tender, brilliantly lighted.” Buy Autobiography of Red from your local bookstore.

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