Congratulations to Alice Munro:
Alice Munro, the renowned Canadian short-story writer whose visceral work explores the tangled relationships between men and women, small-town existence and the fallibility of memory, won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday. Ms. Munro, 82, is the 13th woman to win the prize.
Announcing the award in Stockholm, the Swedish Academy said that Ms. Munro is a “master of the contemporary short story.”
Ms. Munro, who lives in Clinton, a town in Ontario, told a writer from The Globe and Mail earlier this year that she planned to retire after “Dear Life,” her 14th story collection.
But what the hell is a "contemporary short story"? Isn't anything written today contemporary?
Glad to see the short story getting a little respect, though. You'd think that with our obsession with texting and platforms like Twitter, the short story would be perfectly suited to our decreasing attention spans and enjoy a resurgence. Probably too complex for many too appreciate -- short form but a lot going on. Noticed haikus aren't exactly soaring in popularity, either.
If you want to see a true master at work, go back and read some of Hemingway's short stories. Dude could write.
