LONDON, May 27 (Xinhua) -- Canadian writer Alice Munro on Wednesday was named the winner of the third Man Booker International Prize.

    "Alice Munro is mostly known as a short story writer and yet 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 judging panel said.

    Munro, one of Canada's most celebrated writers, said she was "totally amazed and delighted."

    Munro was born in Wingham, Ontario on July 10, 1931. In 1963 she moved to Victoria and established Munro's Books with her husband. Her 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 Award, Canada's prestigious literary prize.

    This 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 short listed for the annual Booker Prize for Fiction.

    Other awards Munro has won include the Marian Engel Prize, the Canada-Australia Literary Prize, the Giller Prize, the Trillium Book Award and the 1986 Governor General's Award for Fiction.

    Her latest collection of short stories, Too Much Happiness, will be published in October 2009.

    The Man Booker International Prize, which is worth 60,000 pounds (96,000 U.S. dollars), is awarded once every two years to aliving author for a body of work that has contributed to an achievement in fiction on the world stage.

    It was first awarded to Albanian writer Ismail Kadare in 2005 and then to Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe in 2007.

    Munro will receive the prize and a trophy at a ceremony on June25 at Trinity College, Dublin.