Western University is pleased to congratulate Canadian author Alice Munro on winning the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2013 and being named “a master of the contemporary short story.”
Munro studied English at Western University as an undergraduate. In 1974-75, she returned to Western as its Writer-in-Residence where she worked on her collection of short stories, Who Do You Think You Are?, which won the Governor General’s Award. She received an Honorary Degree from Western in 1976, the only such degree she has ever accepted.
“Alice Munro is not only a treasure to Canadians, but to the world,” said Amit Chakma, President and Vice Chancellor, Western University. “Western students, faculty and alumni are extremely proud that she counts the University as part of her literary family.”
Munro is the first Canadian woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature since its launch in 1901. She has been recognized with numerous writing awards, including the Man International Booker Prize in 2009, Giller Prize in 1998 and 2004 and is a three-time winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award.
“Alice Munro’s fiction has entertained, educated and inspired us for decades,” said Michael Milde, Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Humanties at Western University. “The Nobel Prize is a confirmation of what her readers have long recognized – Alice Munro is an outstanding storyteller and an astute student of our common humanity. Her stories capture the immediacy of individual personality and place and make them resonate out to the wide world.”
