Nobel 2013: Alice Munro!!!

on Thursday, October 10, 2013
The Swedish Academy has just announced that the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature has gone to Alice Munro. I didn't pick it (big surprise there!) but I'm pretty darn happy. Another recent retiree from the world of letters - she's 82, she deserves a break - Munro is the undisputed queen of the contemporary short story. A great win and a long overdue recognition of an important literary form.

POSTSCRIPT: Turns out the this might just have been a machiavellian masterstroke by the Academy. In her immediate post-award interview, Munro joked that this may change her mind about retirement. Here's hoping! If her most recent collection, last year's Dear Life, is anything to go by she is in career-best form right now. Check out the whole interview with a clearly delighted (and delightful) Ms. Munro here.

3 comments:

Evan said...

Ashamed to say I've never read her. Where would be a good place to start?

The Bookworm said...

Oddly enough, her last collection, Dear Life, is amazing. It came out last year and she announced her retirement soon afterwards. Distills all that is great about her into a single collection. Phenomenal to think she was 80 or so when she wrote it.

Evan said...

Excellent. Onto the shopping list it goes.

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