Alice Munro

Internationally acclaimed as the master of the modern short story, patronizing  the Southern Ontario Gothic Literary genre and with no less than 14 story collections in her kitty, Alice Munro has done her native Canada proud by bagging the country’s first Nobel Prize for Literature.

Born to a poultry farmer and a school teacher in 1931, Alice becomes the 13th woman to win the most distinctive and at the same time the most lucrative award in the world.

When informed of her pick early Thursday October 10 by an excited daughter, her reaction was : “impossible”, “just so splendid” as she expressed the hope that people will begin to consider short story as “an important art”.

Compared by Cynthia Ozick to Russian playwright Chekhov who resented through his work the Tsar-regime-restriction of the day, the writings of Alice Munro, although basically manifestations of human nature, often pose challenges to country’s rulers like did her first collection of stories at age 37, ‘Dance of the Happy Shades‘.

Congratulations by Prime Minister Stephen Harper hopefully signal that despite the current stalemate of Canada EU Trade talks on beef/pork dispute she will have no hassle traveling in December to receive the prestigious award.