Canadian author Alice Munro has won the Nobel Prize for Literature, which was announced this morning by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm. For Munro, who retired from writing for a second and final time this past summer, it's the pinnacle of a career that's seen her win nearly every major award for an author writing in English. She's the first Canadian author to receive the award—a long overdue honor that nonetheless came as a surprise, since many had perennial favorite Haruki Murakami pegged as this year’s laureate. The Nobel committee described Munro as simply and succinctly as she would one of her characters: “Master of the contemporary short story.” Munro’s fourteenth collection Dear Life was published last fall, once again drawing well-deserved comparisons to Russian master Anton Chekhov. The Nobel cements her reputation as the most highly-lauded Canadian author of the past century.
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