Viewpoint: Alice Munro Wins Nobel Prize for Literature

Professor Dinah Birch is University of Liverpool’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research and Knowledge Exchange) and Professor of English Literature

“This is a moment to be savoured and celebrated.

“Alice Munro, Canadian short-story writer, is not an unknown – her reputation in Western literary circles has been high for years, and in 2009 she was a popular choice as the winner of the Man Booker International Prize for Fiction.  But the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature is the final confirmation of her standing as one of the greatest writers of her generation.

“Now 82 years old, Munro published her first collection in 1968, beginning her decades-long exploration of the lives of the ordinary people of western Ontario, where she was brought up.  In her assured hands, their hopes and sorrows acquire an intensity that makes her quiet stories absorbing, unsettling, and deeply moving.  Never sentimental, she reflects on the strangeness of what might seem mundane with a piercing intelligence that compels us to see the world differently.

“Munro is not interested in thrilling plots, nor stirring calls for action, nor spectacles of adventure and heroism.  And yet her work is unforgettable – often bleak, but nevertheless a resilient affirmation of the power of shared human feeling.  Those who have never encountered her work now have an excellent reason to make her acquaintance.  Her most recent collection, Dear Life (2012), is a perfect place to start.”