Nobel Literature Prize to Be Announced Today... Can Xue and Anne Carson Lead as Focus Turns to 'Women Writers'

Nine straight years of alternating male and female winners since 2017... 18 women laureates in total
Can Xue and Carson joint frontrunners at Ladbrokes... Garza, Kincaid and Wright also in focus
South Korean readers favor Atwood... Murakami, Murnane and Pynchon remain contenders

The 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate will be announced at 8 p.m. on October 8 (Korea time). With the announcement drawing near, Chinese writer Can Xue and Canadian writer Anne Carson have emerged as the frontrunners in overseas betting markets, while attention is also turning to non-European women writers such as Cristina Rivera Garza and Jamaica Kincaid. Longtime “usual suspects,” including Japan’s Murakami Haruki, Australia’s Gerald Murnane and the United States’ Thomas Pynchon, are still in the running.

Nobel Prize medal

The list of Nobel Prize in Literature candidates and the judging process remain sealed for 50 years. Because no one can know for sure who the candidates are until just before the announcement, literary and publishing circles, as well as betting markets, compete to predict the winner each year. From 1901 through last year, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded 118 times to 122 people. Eighteen of them were women.

Recent results have also helped fuel this year’s “a woman writer will win” prediction. Since Kazuo Ishiguro in 2017, the winners have alternated between male and female writers for nine consecutive years: Olga Tokarczuk (2018), Peter Handke (2019), Louise Glück (2020), Abdulrazak Gurnah (2021), Annie Ernaux (2022), Jon Fosse (2023), Han Kang (2024) and László Krasznahorkai (2025). With Krasznahorkai, a male writer, winning last year, women writers’ names stand out even more on this year’s lists of likely candidates.

The two current frontrunners are both women. According to odds compiled by the UK’s Guardian on October 7, Chinese novelist Can Xue and Canadian poet Anne Carson were joint leaders at 10-1. Murakami Haruki followed at 14-1, with Murnane and Pynchon at 16-1. Margaret Atwood, Rivera Garza and Kincaid were also among the leading contenders. Odds vary slightly by betting company, and Can Xue remains the favorite in NicerOdds’ rankings.

Can Xue, whose real name is Deng Xiaohua, is one of the most distinctive experimental writers in contemporary Chinese literature. Her novels, in which reality and dreams, desire and fear intertwine without clear boundaries, have earned her the nickname “China’s Kafka.” Her novel Love in the New Century was longlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2019, and her story collection I Live in the Slums was longlisted for the same prize in 2021. She has moved in and out of the betting markets’ top tier for several years, but Stockholm has yet to call her name.

Canadian writer Anne Carson. Courtesy of the Princess of Asturias Foundation.

Carson pushes the boundaries between genres in a way entirely different from Can Xue. A classicist, she layers ancient Greek mythology and philosophy over modern love and desire, freely blending the forms of poetry, fiction, essays and translation. Her best-known work, Autobiography of Red, is a verse novel that recasts Geryon, the monster slain by Heracles, as a young man in the modern world. In Sweden, too, her work, which moves freely between classical and popular culture, theory and literary history, is drawing attention as one of this year’s leading contenders.

As the announcement approaches, Mexican writer Rivera Garza is also gaining momentum. Some live prediction markets showed a sharp rise on October 8 in her chances of winning. She received the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Memoir or Autobiography for Liliana’s Invincible Summer, which traces the life of her younger sister, murdered by her former boyfriend in 1990. The work explores femicide and gender-based violence by combining memoir, investigative reporting and poetic biography.

Mexican writer Cristina Rivera Garza. YES24

One name appearing much more frequently in Sweden recently is Kincaid. Born in Antigua in the Caribbean, she has incisively explored the legacy of colonialism, family, mother-daughter relationships and identity. Late last month, she received the Mermaid Award, a lifetime achievement honor, at the Gothenburg Book Fair, Sweden’s largest literary event. The Swedish public radio broadcaster’s flagship literary program also held a book club throughout September, reading Annie John and Lucy. Kincaid’s name has repeatedly appeared in Swedish media predictions for the Nobel Prize.

Expand the field of candidates, and the trend toward “non-European women” becomes even clearer. Swedish media have also mentioned Argentina’s Samanta Schweblin and Mariana Enriquez, as well as Alexis Wright, an Indigenous Australian writer, as names to watch. Wright, in particular, has developed distinctive collective narratives about Indigenous communities, mining development, climate and land. A literary landscape different from the long-standing Europe-centered pool of candidates is taking shape beyond the prediction lists.

Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami. Yonhap News.

That does not mean male writers have been pushed aside. Murakami is still among the top contenders this year, at 14-1 with Ladbrokes, followed by Murnane and Pynchon. Salman Rushdie, Mircea Cărtărescu, César Aira and Amitav Ghosh have also featured repeatedly in overseas predictions. Murakami has now become one of the quintessential “perennial candidates” whose name is mentioned every year on the day the Nobel Prize in Literature is announced.

Predictions among readers in South Korea differ somewhat from the overseas betting odds. In a reader poll being run by Aladin through October 8, Atwood is the overwhelming leader at 39.76%. Murakami follows at 19.07%, then Can Xue at 8.80% and Carson at 4.61%. Hwang Sok-yong is fifth at 3.71%, while Rushdie and Kincaid have each received around 3% of the votes. In an earlier poll compiled by YES24, Atwood also received the most votes, with 22%.

Predictions do not always come true. Last year, Krasznahorkai was among the leading contenders in betting markets, but Han Kang’s name was hard to find near the top of major odds lists shortly before the 2024 announcement. Conversely, some writers, such as Jon Fosse and Annie Ernaux, have hovered on prediction lists for years before eventually winning.

This year, too, whether Can Xue and Carson will hold on to the lead, whether names such as Rivera Garza or Kincaid will surge ahead, or whether an entirely different writer will emerge from outside the predictions will only be known when the doors open in Stockholm at 8 p.m.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.