Canadian Alice Munro wins Nobel Prize for Literature

Author Alice Munro, was named the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday. The 82-year-old is the first Canada-based writer to win the honour. She is the 13th woman to receive the Literature Nobel and the 110th Nobel Laureate.

Presented by the Nobel Foundation, the award (only for living writers) is worth eight million kronor (Rs 7.55 crore). Previous winners of the prize include literary giants such as Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison and Rudyard Kipling.

Munro is primarily known for her short stories and has published many collections over the years. Her works include Who Do You Think You Are? (1978), The Moons of Jupiter (1982), Runaway (2004), The View from Castle Rock (2006) and Too Much Happiness (2009). The collection Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (2001) became the basis of the film Away from Her from 2006, directed by Sarah Polley. Her most recent collection is Dear Life (2012).

Munro is acclaimed for her finely tuned storytelling, which is characterised by clarity and psychological realism. Her stories are often set in small town environments, where the struggle for a socially acceptable existence often results in strained relationships and moral conflicts – problems that stem from generational differences and colliding life ambitions.

Munro is acclaimed for her finely tuned storytelling, which is characterized by clarity and psychological realism. Some critics consider her a Canadian Chekhov. Her stories are often set in small town environments, where the struggle for a socially acceptable existence often results in strained relationships and moral conflicts -- problems that stem from generational differences and colliding life ambitions.

Her texts often feature depictions of everyday but decisive events, epiphanies of a kind, that illuminate the surrounding story and let existential questions appear in a flash of lightning. Many critics have asserted that Munro's stories often have the emotional and literary depth of novels. 

The Swedish Academy said that they could not get a hold of Munroe, and had left a phone message for her.

Munro currently resides in Clinton, near her childhood home in southwestern Ontario.