A look at the work and life of author Alice Munro

News that Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize was immediately promoted at the Frankfurt Book Fair, currently underway in Germany. The book fair caters to the international business of publishing. (Michael Probst / Associated Press)

Oct. 10, 2013 2:58 PM PT

News that Alice Munro, 82, was the winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature was met with tremendous enthusiasm from her fans in America. The Canadian author is known as a master of short fiction, a talent that is often overlooked by prize juries. Here is a look at the author, whose stories exquisitely explore the fragile relationships between people.

Alice Munro is known for her short stories. In “Amundsen,” the most recent published in the New Yorker, she describes a wintry landscape that will bring its main character both joy and sorrow. “Then there was silence, the air like ice. Brittle-looking birch trees with black marks on their white bark, and some small, untidy evergreens, rolled up like sleepy bears. The frozen lake not level but mounded along the shore, as if the waves had turned to ice in the act of falling. And the building, with its deliberate rows of windows and its glassed-in porches at either end. Everything austere and northerly, black-and-white under the high dome of clouds. So still, so immense an enchantment.” (Stephen Morrison / EPA)

Director and actress Sarah Polley adapted Alice Munro’s story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” for the screen as “Away From Her.” The 2006 film was nominated for two Oscars: one for Polley for best adapted screenplay and the other for Julie Christie for best actress. (Carlos Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

Alice Munro was awarded the Man Booker International Prize in 2009. The Nobel is often awarded after a lifetime of literary achievements. (Peter Muhly / AFP/Getty Images)

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