Decreation

FROM ANNE CARSON, WINNER OF THE 2026 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE An “exhilarating” collection of remarkably eclectic forms, “full of marvelous insights” (The New York Review of Books) into the making and unmaking of a self “One of the most interesting gatherings of material that any poet has published within living memory.”—The Economist Simone Weil described “decreation” as “undoing the creature in us”—an undoing of self. In this characteristically brilliant collection, Anne Carson explores this idea with a tantalizing range of reference, moving from Aphrodite to Antonioni, Demosthenes to Annie Dillard, Telemachos to Trotsky, and writing in forms as varied as opera libretto, screenplay, poem, oratorio, essay, shot list, and rapture. As she makes her way through these forms she slowly dismantles them, and in doing so seeks to move through the self, to its undoing.

ANNE CARSON was born in Canada and has been a professor of Classics for over thirty years. Her awards and honors include the Lannan Award, the Pushcart Prize, the Griffin Trust Award for Excellence in Poetry, and fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations.