The Penguin Podcast is back! Listen Now
Wrong Norma

Wrong Norma

Summary

Wrong Norma is Anne Carson's first book of original material in eight years

'Effortlessly readable and – a word critics don’t often use about her – fun' DAILY TELEGRAPH

'I'm a big fan... She pinpoints the collision of oracle and anachronism' TEJU COLE

As with her most recent publications, Wrong Norma is a facsimile edition of the original hand-designed book, drawn and annotated by the author. Several of the twenty-five startling poetic prose pieces have appeared in magazines and journals like the New Yorker and the Paris Review.

Anne Carson is probably our most celebrated living poet, winner of countless awards and routinely tipped for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Famously reticent, asking that her books be published without cover copy, she has agreed to say this:

Wrong Norma is a collection of writings about different things, like Joseph Conrad, Guantanamo, Flaubert, snow, poverty, Roget's Thesaurus, my Dad, Saturday night, Sokrates, writing sonnets, forensics, encounters with lovers, the word "idea", the feet of Jesus, and Russian thugs. The pieces are not linked. That's why I've called them "wrong".

Reviews

  • Uncompromisingly intelligent, while being effortlessly readable, and – a word critics don’t often use about Carson – fun
    Daily Telegraph

About the author

Anne Carson

Anne Carson was born in Canada and has been a professor of Classics for over thirty years. Her awards and honours include the T. S. Eliot Prize, a Lannan Award, the Pushcart Prize, the Griffin Prize, on two occasions, fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations, and the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature 2020.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more