March 8, 1999
Web posted at: 9:37 p.m. EST (0237 GMT)

(CNN) -- Canadian short story writer Alice Munro won this year's fiction prize from the National Book Critics Circle for her collection, "The Love of a Good Woman."

This was just the second year non-U.S. citizens were eligible for the award, and the second year one has won the fiction prize. In 1998, British author Penelope Fitzgerald won.

Other winners announced Monday night in New York were:

• General nonfiction, Philip Gourevitch for "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories From Rwanda";
• Biography/autobiography, Sylvia Nasar for "A Beautiful Mind";
• Criticism, Village Voice writer Gary Giddins for "Visions of Jazz: The First Century";
• Poetry, Marie Ponsot for "The Bird Catcher."

Finalists in the fiction category included another acclaimed short story writer: Lorrie Moore, for "Birds of America," along with three novelists: Michael Cunningham, for "The Hours," David Gates, for "Preston Falls," and Lynne Tillman, for "No Lease on Life."

Not nominated was "Tom Wolfe for "A Man in Full". Other prominent authors not making the cut include National Book Award winner Alice McDermott, whose novel "Charming Billy" has been a surprise best seller, and Robert Stone, whose "Damascus Gate" was also a National Book Award runner-up.