Alice Munro wins the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature

As you’ve most likely heard by now, Canadian writer Alice Munro has won the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature, becoming the first Canadian to win the award (do we count Saul Bellow? I never remember), and the thirteenth woman to do so. There had been musings around Munro for some time, despite the odds-on favourite being Japanese writer Haruki Murikama (such as this particular article). There will most likely be hundreds of pieces over the next few weeks and months, but the first few are already online, including an appreciation by Margaret Atwood in The Guardian, as well as articles in The Toronto Star, The New York Times and The National Post.

Canadians have been discussed as potential winners for some time now, including talk on Margaret Atwood, and even talk some years back around Irving Layton, but this remains our first-ever win. Congratulations, Alice Munro!

Might this, then, trigger a resurgence in the short story? Or at least a bit more serious attention?

It's enough for me to think that my Scottish Ontario Protestant work-ethic might someday pay off...