Alice Munro was born on the 10th of July, 1931 in Wingham, which is in the Canadian province of Ontario. Her mother was a teacher, and her father was a fox farmer. After finishing high school, she began studying journalism and English at the University of Western Ontario, but broke off her studies when she got married in 1951. Together with her husband, she settled in Victoria, British Columbia, where the couple opened a bookstore. Munro started writing stories in her teens, but published her first book-length work in 1968, the story collection Dance of the Happy Shades, which received considerable attention in Canada. She had begun publishing in various magazines from the beginning of the 1950's. In 1971 she published a collection of stories entitled Lives of Girls and Women, which critics have described as a Bildungsroman.
Munro is primarily known for her short stories and has published many collections over the years. Her works include Who Do You Think You Are? (1978), The Moons of Jupiter (1982), Runaway (2004), The View from Castle Rock (2006) and Too Much Happiness (2009). The collection Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (2001) became the basis of the film Away from Her from 2006, directed by Sarah Polley. Her most recent collection is Dear Life (2012).
Munro is acclaimed for her finely tuned storytelling, which is characterized by clarity and psychological realism. Some critics consider her a Canadian Chekhov. Her stories are often set in small town environments, where the struggle for a socially acceptable existence often results in strained relationships and moral conflicts – problems that stem from generational differences and colliding life ambitions. Her texts often feature depictions of everyday but decisive events, epiphanies of a kind, that illuminate the surrounding story and let existential questions appear in a flash of lightning.
Alice Munro currently resides in Clinton, near her childhood home in southwestern Ontario.
From: www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2013
Awards and Prizes
Alice Munro has received many awards and prizes, including
- Canada's Governor General's Literary Awards (three times)
- Giller Prize (twice)
- Marian Engel Award
- Rea Award for the Short Story
- Lannan Literary Award
- WH Smith Book Award in the UK
- National Book Critics Circle Award in the US
- Shortlisted for the Booker Prize for The Beggar Maid (1980)
- Man Booker International Prize 2009 for her overall contribution to fiction on the world stage
- Nobel Prize in Literature 2013
Catalogue Link: Books by Alice Munro at Hastings District Libraries
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