Alice Munro–Nobel Laureate |

Alice Munro has become the first Canadian woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Announcing the award today, the Nobel Prize Committee called her a "master of the short story".

Munro was born in 1931 in Wingham, Ontario. The daughter of a teacher and a fox farmer, Munro began writing in childhood. She planned on a career in journalism but left the University of Western Ontario to marry fellow student James Munro and relocate to Victoria, BC. Unfulfilled as a housewife and mother, she and her husband opened a bookstore where her creativity resurfaced. Her first collection of short stories, Dance of the Happy Shades was published in 1968.

Munro, now 82, announced her decision to retire from writing earlier this year. She has said she is "surprised and delighted" by the honour.

A selection of her works: