Alice Munro Wins Literature Nobel

The Swedish Academy announced Thursday that Alice Munro, the Canadian author known for her short stories about life in southwestern Ontario, is the 2013 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. The 82-year-old author told Canadian press that she was delighted at the news, but also "terribly suprised." "I never thought I would win. At this moment, I can't believe it," she said. "But it's quite wonderful." Munro has published 13 short-story collections, including her debut, Dance of the Happy Shades (1968), which won her first Governor award, and The Progress of Love, which won the award exactly three decades later. Her final story collection, she said, was 2012's Dear Life, and she announced in June that she had retired from writing.