Nobel Prize in Literature 2026 to be named in Stockholm, with Carson and Can Xue leading odds
The Swedish Academy will name the winner of the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature at 13:00 CEST on Thursday 8 October 2026.
The announcement comes from Stockholm, Sweden, where the Academy awards the prize each year. Its press meeting is expected to end at 13:30. All 2026 Nobel Prize announcements are streamed live on nobelprize.org. Swedish Academy
The wait is almost over. The literature prize is one of a week of announcements running from 5 to 12 October.
Bookmakers have joint favourites. Canadian poet Anne Carson and Chinese writer Can Xue were listed at odds of 10/1 each by Ladbrokes, according to a live blog published on 8 October 2026. Those odds are prices for bets. They are not a hint from the jury, which keeps its choice secret until the announcement. The Guardian
Can Xue, aged 73, is known for experimental prose with a stream-of-consciousness, dreamlike style. Her real name is Deng Xiaohua and she was born in Cangsha City in 1953.
She has a record in translated-fiction prizes. She was longlisted — named to an early cut before the shortlist — for the International Booker Prize in 2019 for Love in the New Millennium and in 2021 for I Live in the Slums. The International Booker honours fiction translated into English and published in Britain and Ireland.
Behind the two favourites, Japanese writer Haruki Murakami was listed at 14/1. Australian writer Gerald Murnane and American writer Thomas Pynchon were listed at 16/1 each. Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood and Jamaica Kincaid were listed at longer odds.
Last year’s laureate was Hungarian novelist László Krasznahorkai, known for dystopic, melancholy prose. His win was announced on 9 October 2025. Reuters
This year’s science prizes have already been set out. The 2026 medicine prize was awarded for optogenetics, a technique that uses light to control cells. The 2026 physics prize was announced by Professor Ellen Moons on 6 October 2026. Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai have been awarded the 2026 chemistry prize. Nobel Prize
For readers new to the prize, this means a single author chosen for a body of work. Alfred Nobel’s will directs that one part be given to the person who produced the most outstanding work in an ideal direction in literature. Literature was the fourth prize area mentioned in the will. The will entrusting the prizes dates from 1895.
Nobel himself kept a lifelong literary interest. He developed it in early youth, built a library with a rich and broad selection of literature in different languages, and in the last years of his life tried writing fiction. Nobel Prize
