'Alice Munro is one of the greatest living writers, but she has always seemed to be almost a secret. Now everyone will know'

This is the Nobel announcement that has made me happiest in the whole of my life. I remember reviewing Alice Munro in the Toronto Globe and Mail and saying she was as great as Chekhov, and the Canadians were surprised but happy. She has done more for the possibilities and the form of the short story than any other writer I know. You can never tell what she is going to say next or what you the reader are going to feel next from line to line. She appears to be in perfect control of her writing, but I interviewed her onstage once and she described how she writes enormously long versions of stories and then cuts them into shape. I admire this immensely. One of my favourite moments in her fiction comes in a story where a woman thinks of her day and then of her life as a series of things that have got to be done and are done: "not much to her credit to go through her life thinking, Well good, now that's over, that's over. What was she looking forward to, what bonus was she hoping to get, when this, and this, and this, was over?" One of her great gifts is recognising these peculiar in some ways ludicrous rhythms of mental life.