Alice Munro Wins Nobel Prize for Literature

Alice Munro has become the second Canadian and the 13th woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The 81-year-old author, affectionately known as “Canada’s Chekov” for her deft hand with both short stories and human relationships, was surprised this morning when her daughter woke her to tell her the news. From CBC:

Reached in British Columbia by CBC News on Thursday morning, Munro said she always viewed her chances of winning the Nobel as “one of those pipe dreams” that “might happen, but it probably wouldn’t.” 

“It’s the middle of the night here and I had forgotten about it all, of course,” she told the CBC’s Heather Hiscox early Thursday.
Munro called the honour “a splendid thing to happen.”

Munro said her husband, Gerald Fremlin, a geographer/cartographer who died in April, would have been very happy, and that her previous husband, James Munro, with whom she has three children, and all her family were thrilled.

The Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to 110 Laureates since 1901. Upon naming her the winner, the Royal Swedish Academy called Munro a “master of the contemporary short story.” In 2009 Munro was awarded the Man Booker International Prize for her lifetime body of work.

The Nobel Prize amount for 2013 is set at 8.0 million Swedish kronor, which is about 1.2 million dollars.