She was a favourite to win the prize, but appears not to have been aware of being nominated, no doubt she has been enjoying her retirement from writing fiction announced earlier this year.
Alice Munro is the 13th women to have won the Nobel Prize for Literature, news to which according to the Guardian, she is said to have responded “Can this be possible? Really? It seems dreadful there’s only 13 of us.”
Not just a resounding win for a short but growing list of women writers finally being recognised, but a victory for readers and writers of the short story, Munroe’s strength and preference.
Could it be a sign that the short story is making a comeback? It is something I wonder about in one of my very first blog posts entitled Why People Don’t Read Short Stories which is a tribute to the form and a reminder of the joy short story collections can bring.
Alice Munro
Born: July 10 1931, Wingham, Ontario, Canada
Educated: 1949-51 University of Western Ontario
Books: 1968 Dance of the Happy Shades
1971 Lives of Girls and Women
1974 Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You
1978 Who Do You Think You Are?
1983 The Moons of Jupiter
1986 The Progress of Love
1990 Friend of My Youth
1994 Open Secrets
1996 Selected Stories
1998 The Love of a Good Woman
2001 Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage
2004 Runaway
2006 The View from Castle Rock
2009 Too Much Happiness
2012 Dear Life
Further Reading:
Feature Article Alice Munro: Riches of a double life, the Master of the contemporary Short Story, Guardian 2003
Word by Word 