LEWISTON – A 1977 Bates College alumna won a Pulitzer Prize on Monday.

Elizabeth Strout, whose parents were born in Lewiston, won the prize for her fictional collection of short stories, “Olive Kitteridge,” which are set in small-town Maine.

“I’m thrilled that stories are being recognized, whether they’re linked or not,” Strout said, adding that she is close to finishing a novel, describing it as “one big, long messy story.”

The Pulitzer judges commended her for work that “packs a cumulative emotional wallop” held together by the “blunt, flawed and fascinating” character of title character Olive.

She told Bates Magazine in 2006 that she grew to love Lewiston during her time as a college student, the town where her parents grew up.

“That’s where my parents’ sense of home was, so that’s where my sense of home was,” Strout said.

She also worked on campus for a brief time after graduating.

Her father taught microbiology at the University of New Hampshire, and her mother was a high school writing teacher. The family lived in Durham, N.H., and Harpswell.

After her junior year in high school, Strout began her education at Bates, majoring in English.

Her first short story was published in 1982, and in 1998, her first novel “Amy and Isabelle” hit the bookshelves.

Strout was recently in Maine promoting her new novel, “Abide with Me,” a story about a small town Maine minister’s fall and redemption.

“Olive Kitteridge” was the first collection of short stories to win a Pulitzer since 2000.

Strout’s book was a finalist for this year’s National Book Critics Circle award for fiction.