This year’s Nobel prize for literature has been awarded to American poet Louise Glück.
Born in New York City in 1943, Glück is one of America’s most widely celebrated and recognised poets. She has been the recipient of both the Pulitzer Prize and two National Book Awards, as well as numerous others accolades. In 2003, she was named the United States’ poet laureate.
The Swedish Academy awarded Glück the prize ‘for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal’.
Glück has often explored themes of loss, trauma and isolation in her work, sometimes reworking Greek and Roman myths. You can read an interesting interview with her about her work and life on the Poets and Writers magazine website here.
Glück is the first American woman to win the Nobel prize for literature since Toni Morrison in 1993.
