STOCKHOLM, Oct. 9 -- Canadian poet, essayist and translator Anne Carson won the Nobel Prize in literature Thursday for playful, genre-blending works that fuse the classical and the modern. Toronto-born Carson, 76, draws on themes and stories from ancient Greek and Roman literature for works that often blend elements of poetry, essay and fiction. Ingrid Carlberg, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said the author was in Iceland "listening to the wind" when the academy reached her to notify her of the win. "She was very taken by surprise," Carlberg said. Carson's books include "Eros the Bittersweet," a look at the pleasure and pain of desire in ancient Greek literature, verse novel "Autobiography of Red," "Men in the Off Hours," a collection of poetry and prose that won Canada's Griffin Prize for poetry in 2001 and "Norma Jeane Baker of Troy," which compares Marilyn Monroe and Helen of Troy. She also has translated works of classical Greek literature that, the Swedish Academy said, "may be regarded as independent works in their own right." They include "If Not, Winter," based on poem fragments by Sappho, Sophocles' tragic plays "Electra" and "Antigone" and Euripides' "Bakkhai." "Almost all her literary production has centered upon the intersection between the philologist's obsession with words and the poet's desire for new meaning," said Anders Olsson, chair of the literature committee. She also has drawn on her own life for works such as "Nox," which was published in 2010. She has taught classics at several North American universities and has lived in Iceland, where she and her husband, Robert Currie, were granted citizenship in 2022.ap...