American poet Louise Gluck wins 2020 literature Nobel Prize

The American poet Louise Gluck has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, for her “candid and uncompromising” work.

The Nobel Committee praised the writer “for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal”.

Her first published work of poetry was Firstborn in 1968. She received the Pulitzer Prize for The Wild Iris in 1992.

Glück is currently writer-in-residence at Yale University and is the first female poet to win the prize since Wislawa Szymborska of Poland, in 1996.

The last American to win was Bob Dylan in 2016.

The 2020 Nobel Prize has a cash award of 10 million Swedish krona (RM4.5 million).

The December awards ceremony in Stockholm will take place virtually this year because of the pandemic.