{"id":795002,"date":"2026-10-07T16:50:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T16:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/795002\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T16:50:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T16:50:12","slug":"anne-carson-and-can-xue-favourites-to-win-nobel-prize-in-literature-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/795002\/","title":{"rendered":"Anne Carson and Can Xue favourites to win Nobel prize in literature | Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canadian poet Anne Carson and Chinese experimental writer Can Xue are the bookies\u2019 favourites to win this year\u2019s Nobel prize in literature<\/a>, set to be announced Thursday.<\/p>\n

The frontrunners both have 10\/1 odds of taking home the world\u2019s most prestigious literary prize, this year worth 12m Swedish Krona (approximately \u00a3900,000), according to Ladbrokes.<\/p>\n

The 76-year-old Carson is known for her hybrid style, mixing poetry and prose, and combining contemporary stories with ancient myth. Among her best-known works is her 1998 verse novel Autobiography of Red, a queer coming-of-age story that reworks a Greek poem about Heracles.<\/p>\n

Can Xue has been a favourite for several years running. The 73-year-old, whose real name is Deng Xiaohua, has twice been longlisted for the International Booker for the novel Love in the New Millennium \u2013 translated by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen \u2013 and for her short story collection I Live in the Slums, translated by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping.<\/p>\n

Coming in behind Carson and Can Xue is Haruki Murakami with odds of 14\/1. The Japanese writer is one of the biggest international sellers among the favourites, known for works including Norwegian Wood and Kafka on the Shore.<\/p>\n

Ladbrokes also have Australian avant garde writer Gerald Murnane in the mix, along with American postmodern novelist Thomas Pynchon, both with odds of 16\/1.<\/p>\n

And at 20\/1 odds are seven writers: Margaret Atwood, Cristina Rivera Garza, Enrique Vila-Matas, Jamaica Kincaid, L\u00eddia Jorge, Lyudmila Ulitskaya and Michel Houellebecq.<\/p>\n

Canadian novelist Atwood, author of The Handmaid\u2019s Tale, already has many of literature\u2019s biggest prizes under her belt, including the Booker and the Giller prize.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Mexican author Rivera Garza won the Pulitzer prize in 2024 for Liliana\u2019s Invincible Summer, a memoir about her 20-year-old sister, who was murdered by a former boyfriend.<\/p>\n

Vila-Matas is one of Spain\u2019s most prominent novelists, known for blending fiction with essay. In 2020, he was longlisted for the International Booker prize for his metafictional novel Mac and His Problem, translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Sophie Hughes.<\/p>\n

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Kincaid is an Antiguan-American writer, best known for books including Annie John, A Small Place and Lucy, which often explore family relationships and colonialism\u2019s destructiveness. Kincaid \u201cis a writer you don\u2019t just read; she is a writer that takes you back to yourself\u201d, wrote the poet<\/a> Jackie Kay in 2022.<\/p>\n

At longer odds are Karl Ove Knausg\u00e5rd, Alexis Wright, Colm T\u00f3ib\u00edn, C\u00e9sar Aira, Deborah Levy, Don DeLillo, Emmanuel Carr\u00e8re, Leila Aboulela, Michael Ondaatje, Mircea C\u0103rt\u0103rescu and Salman Rushdie.<\/p>\n

The winner will be announced at 12pm UK time (1pm CEST) on Thursday. Last year\u2019s recipient<\/a> was the Hungarian writer L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Krasznahorkai. Other recent winners include Han Kang, Jon Fosse, Annie Ernaux and Abdulrazak Gurnah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canadian poet Anne Carson and Chinese experimental writer Can Xue are the bookies\u2019 favourites to win this year\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":795003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-795002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}