Alice Munro wins 2013 Nobel Prize in literature Alice Munro is the winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in literature. The Canadian author was lauded for being "master of the short story" by Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy. Munro, 82, is the rare author who has made a career of crafting short fiction instead of novels. I can't do it yet. And believe me, I'm always trying. Between every book I think, 'Well now, it's time to get down to the serious stuff.' Sometimes I look at novels and see how short people can make them. If I can string a story out to 60 pages ["The Love of a Good Woman," 1998] surely it can't be too hard. It doesn't work," she told the Guardian more than a decade ago. Munro is the author of 13 short-story collections. Her most recent, "Dear Life," concluded with a section "Finale" that she says is close to her own life. In July, after winning Canada's Trillium Book Award, she announced her retirement from writing. The announcement was made in Stockholm and streamed live on YouTube. American adults have low (and declining) reading proficiency Writer Ilija Trojanov on being unexpectedly barred from the U.S.