Why Alice Munro Didn't Write Novels

Nobel Winner Was Too Busy To Write Novels
Canadian author Alice Munro poses for a photograph at the Canadian Consulate's residence in New York Oct. 28, 2002. The 71-year-old Munro's published work includes eight short story collections and one novel, "The Lives of Girls and Women." (AP Photo/Paul Hawthorne)
Canadian author Alice Munro poses for a photograph at the Canadian Consulate's residence in New York Oct. 28, 2002. The 71-year-old Munro's published work includes eight short story collections and one novel, "The Lives of Girls and Women." (AP Photo/Paul Hawthorne)

This morning, Alice Munro became the first Canadian author and the 13th woman ever to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. (Good timing: Munro also told The New York Times this summer that she may be done with writing altogether.) In its announcement, the Swedish Academy called Munro, 82, the "master of the contemporary short story," highlighting the fact that she, unlike most Nobel Prize laureates, does not write novels.

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