Alice Munro as the 2013 Nobel Laureate: Canadian Literature Has Finally Come of Age

October 2013 marks the date of perhaps the most significant literary event for Canadians, whose literature and sense of identity have been dominated by the absence of strong foundations. With Alice Munro’s Nobel Prize, not only has Canadian Literature finally come of age, emerging as an important force in the world, but the author herself has received the greatest honour awarded to a writer: the honour of having her name inscribed in history for all eternity. What is more, the short story genre has also received the recognition it deserves, in spite of all scepticism voiced against this literary art form, and even women may feel that Munro’s Prize is also a bit theirs. With so many people and so many interests implicated in this award, the world’s reaction to such key accomplishments was expected to be free of polemical acrimony. However, agreement and consensus are, for the most part, difficult to reach, as there are always dissident voices complaining against the injustice of the committee’s decision. It is in light of the above that I believe it is important to analyse Munro’s entrance to the canon, in particular through a brief reading and discussion of some of her most recent works, because I believe that there is a classical Munrovian touch to her stories that makes her stand out as unique: Alice Munro’s fully fleshed-out characters are so well-crafted, with all their flaws and strengths, that, in a short span of pages, we see them move over from the literary to the real world (or is it the other way around?!)