Munro bags Intl Booker Prize pipping Mahasweta, Naipaul

Prasun Sonwalkar

London, May 27 (PTI) Acclaimed Canadian short story writer
Alice Munro has bagged this year's Man Booker International
Prize worth 60,000 pounds, pipping celebrated Bengali author
Mahasweta Devi and Indian-origin Nobel laureate V S Naipaul in
the clash of the world's literary giants.

77-year-old Munro is the third person to win the
prestigious award, which is given every two years since its
creation in 2005. Earlier, it was awarded to Albania's Ismail
Kadare and Nigeria's Chinua Achebe.

Veteran writers Mahasweta Devi and V S Naipaul were among
13 writers who were shortlisted for this year's award, which
recognises a living author for his/her contribution to
literature and to highlight the author's creativity and
development on a global scale.

Reacting to her win, Munro, popular for her short
stories, said: "I am totally amazed and delighted."

The judging panel which included Jane Smiley, Amit
Chaudhuri and Andrey Kurkov lauded Munro saying 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," the panel said.

The Man Booker International Prize is affiliated with the
Booker Prize and can be won by an author of any nationality
providing their work is available in English.

Peter Clarke, Chief Executive, Man Group PLC, said that
since her first collection of stories was published in 1968,
Munro has been "highly acclaimed as the contemporary master of
the short fiction genre".

Munro's stories frequently appear in publications such as
'The New Yorker', 'The Atlantic Monthly', 'Grand Street',
'Mademoiselle' and 'The Paris Review'.

Her first collection of stories, 'Dance of the Happy
Shades' (1968) was highly acclaimed and won the Governor
General's Literary Award, Canada's most prestigious literary
prize.

Her success was followed by 'Lives of Girls and Women'
(1971), which won the Canadian Booksellers Association
International Book Year Award. In 1980 'The Beggar Maid' was
shortlisted for the annual Booker Prize for Fiction.

Munro, who now lives in Clinton in Ontario, will receive
the prize at an award ceremony on June 25 at Trinity College,
Dublin. PTI PS
RKM