Alice in Wonderland

[caroljane]

I was surprised to hear that Alice Munro has got the Nobel prize for literature. One, I did not think it was North America's turn for the prize, and two, I did not think that she was internationally read. I have read her since she first started writing... if we have a Core Curriculum here I guess she is part of it, since both my sons had to read Lives of Girls and Women in school, and did not complain too much about it, at least in my presence.

Her mastery of the short story form, her seemingly effortless bridge between reality and the page, there is something about it remote and unique, in the way I think of Mozart.

The Nobels are all politics of course, and I think Margaret Laurence should have been the first Canadian woman novelist honoured. And don't even get me started on the men.

[BaalChatzaf]

I was surprised to hear that Alice Munro has got the Nobel prize for literature. One, I did not think it was North America's turn for the prize, and two, I did not think that she was internationally read. I have read her since she first started writing... if we have a Core Curriculum here I guess she is part of it, since both my sons had to read Lives of Girls and Women in school, and did not complain too much about it, at least in my presence.

Her mastery of the short story form, her seemingly effortless bridge between reality and the page, there is something about it remote and unique, in the way I think of Mozart.

The Nobels are all politics of course, and I think Margaret Laurence should have been the first Canadian woman novelist honoured. And don't even get me started on the men.

The Nobel Awards in the physical sciences are less political.

There is an objective basis for the merit of scientific undertakings.

This is not the case in literature.

Of course the Peace Prize is pure bullshit.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Selene]

Carol, got this today from my Women's History e-mail...

Alice Munro, a Canadian short-story writer often published in the New Yorker, has been named the 2013 Nobel Laureate for Literature, citing her as a "master of the contemporary short story." She was the 13th woman and the 110th person to be given this honor.

• About Alice Munro
• Women Nobel Literature Prize Winners