Alice Munro wins 2009 Man Booker International Prize
Canadian short story writer is third writer to win prize
Alice
Munro is today, 27 May 2009, announced as the winner of the third Man Booker
International Prize. The Man Booker International Prize, worth £60,000 to the
winner, is awarded once every two years to a living author for a body of work
that has contributed to an achievement in fiction on the world stage. It was
first awarded to Ismail Kadaré in 2005 and then to Chinua Achebe in 2007.
Best known for her short stories, Munro is one of Canada's most celebrated
writers. On receiving the news of her win, she said, ‘I am totally amazed and
delighted.'
The judging panel for the Man Booker International Prize 2009 is: Jane Smiley,
writer; Amit Chaudhuri, writer, academic and musician; and writer, film script
writer and essayist, Andrey Kurkov. The panel made the following comment on the
winner:
‘Alice Munro is mostly known as a short story writer and yet she brings as much
depth, wisdom and precision to every story as most novelists bring to a lifetime
of novels. To read Alice Munro is to learn something every time that you never
thought of before.'
Her latest collection of short stories, Too Much Happiness, will be published in
October 2009. Alice Munro will receive the prize of £60,000 and a trophy at the
Award Ceremony on Thursday 25 June at Trinity College, Dublin.
Read more about the judging process of the Man Booker Internatonal Prize in an
exclusive piece by Fiammetta Rocco, administrator of the prize, in our
Perspective section.
For more information on the 2009 Man Booker International Prize winner please
see the press release.
Courtesy: http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/stories/1226 |