Canadian short story writer, Alice Munro has won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature for short stories "characterized by clarity and psychological realism" which is likened to the work of Anton Chekhov. The stories of Alice Munro often follows the lives of ordinary Canadians struggling with moral conflicts and social pressure in small towns similar to Wingham in Ontario, the place where she was born.
Since the 1960s, Munro has published more than a dozen short stories, many of which took place in Canada. These stories have allowed her to win several awards such as The Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the National Book Critics Circle prize for Hateship, Friendship, Courtship. Loveship and Marriage. She is also a three-time winner of the Governor General's prize.
Furthermore, several of her stories made it to the big screen such as "The Bear Came Over the Mountain, which became Away from Her." In addition, Munro revealed earlier this year that a book called Dear Life that was published back in 2012, would be her last.
"Perhaps, when you're my age, you don't wish to be alone as much as a writer has to be," she told Canada's National Post.
During the ceremony, Munro had no idea she won the Nobel Prize until her daughter awoke her in the middle of the night to announce to her the good news.
"It's of course very wonderful," Munro said in an interview. "It seemed one of those pipe dreams -- it might happen, but it probably wouldn't. I am surprised and delighted. It could be a tremendous joke, but I don't think so."
Washington Post writer, Jane Smiley, had the following kind words to say about Alice Munro.
"I can't think of another writer whose every paragraph is so quietly powerful. Munro does not assert, she describes and suggests. The world she evokes seems at first mundane. When she started out in the 1960s and '70s, her stories were set close to home: rural Ontario, Vancouver, inside the house or out in the farmyard. But she understands the meaning of every detail and its connection to the larger pulse of aspiration and disappointment, love and death."
The 2012 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature is Chinese novelist, Mo Yan.
