Canadian Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday for her tales of the struggles, loves and tragedies of women in small-town Canada that made her what the award-giving committee called the “master of the contemporary short story,” Reuters reports.
“Some critics consider her a Canadian Chekhov,” the Swedish Academy said, comparing her to the 19th-century Russian short story writer in a statement on its website.
Munro, 82, started writing stories in her teens. She is mainly known for her short stories and has published many collections over the years. Her works include “The View from Castle Rock” in 2006 and “Too Much Happiness” three years later.
“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,” the Academy said.
Munro, who was awarded the prize of 8 million crowns ($1.25 million) by the committee, lives in Clinton, not far from her childhood home in southwestern Ontario, Canada.
