Publishers in China are preparing for an Alice Munro craze after the writer won the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday. The Swedish Academy awarded the 82-year-old Canadian writer the prize for her "finely tuned storytelling, which is characterized by clarity and psychological realism.".

Thinkingdom Media Group, a leading private book agency, has already started to work overtime to print 100,000 new copies of "Runaway," one of Munro's story collections published in 2004.

Thinkingdom's Editor-in-Chief of foreign literature Li Yao added the company was also scheduled to launch Munro's new book "Dear Life" (2012), which is set in her hometown, near Lake Huron.

Nanjing-based Yilin Press, which is renowned for publishing translated foreign literature, confirmed on Thursday that it has already signed copyright agreements for seven of Munro's major story collections; "Dance of the Happy Shades" (1968), "Lives of Girls and Women" (1971), "The Progress of Love" (1986), "Open Secrets" (1994), "The Love of a Good Woman" (1998), "Too much Happiness" (2009), and "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage" (2001).

The translated version of "Open Secrets" will reach Chinese readers before the end of the year, according to Yilin. It said that six other books are still pending translation and are scheduled to be published from next year.

Munro's Nobel Prize win did not surprise Yu Zhongxian, Editor-in-Chief of World Literature, a famous bimonthly specializing in introducing foreign literature to Chinese readers. He said "it was reasonable that she got the award. Munro was quite influential in European and American literature circles, though Chinese readers don't know much about her."

Thinkingdom's Li Yao echoed the notion, saying that Munro is in the same class as Doris Lessing, the 2007 Nobel Prize laureate and A. S. Byatt, therefore the prize win is not surprising.

"Munro wrote patiently amid the serenity of Ottawa, making her works extremely finely tuned. She is a craftsperson of literature, who creates irrespective of external influences," said Han Jingqun, Editor-in-Chief of October Art Publishing.

Munro is the 13th woman to win the award, and the fourth in the 21st century.

"Western countries have more female writers, who have made huge contribution to fiction," said Lu Jiande, chief of the Literature Research Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He noted that Margaret Atwood is a more well-known Canadian woman writer in China than Munro "because Munro's works are not as widely translated."

Lu regard's Munro's laureateship as an encouragement to short story writers, given that many of the the writer's achievements were short story collections.

"Munro has extraordinary attainments in her field. She focuses on daily life and writes touching stories; she does not rely on technique but tells plain stories," said Lu.

Following Munro's prize win, Canadian literature is also set to boom in China. Professional translator Bei Ta (aka. Xu Weifeng) predicted that Munro would increase the diversity of English-language literature studies in China. "We used to only discuss British and American literature, and didn't focus on literature from other English speaking countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand," Lu said.

According to Lu, Munro visited China in the 1980s, as part of a delegation of Canadian writers, on a literature exchange.

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