Alice Munro

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Alice Ann Munro(née Laidlaw; born 10 July 1931) is a Canadian short-story writer and three-time winner of Canada's Governor General's Award for fiction. Widely considered "the finest living short story writer,"[1] her stories focus on human relationships looked at through the lens of daily life. While most of Munro’s fiction is set in Southwestern Ontario, her reputation as a short-story writer is international. Her "accessible, moving stories" explore human complexities in a seemingly effortless style.[2] Munro's writing has established her as "one of our greatest contemporary writers of fiction," or, as Cynthia Ozick put it, "our Chekhov."[3]

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[edit] Biography

Alice Munro was born in the town of Wingham, Ontario into a family of fox and poultry farmers. Her father was Robert Eric Laidlaw and her mother, a school teacher, was Anne Clarke Laidlaw (née Chamney). She began writing as a teenager and published her first story, "The Dimensions of a Shadow," while a student at the University of Western Ontario in 1950. During this period she worked as a waitress, tobacco picker and library clerk. In 1951, she left the university, in which she had been majoring in English since 1949, to marry James Munro and move to Vancouver, British Columbia. Her daughters Sheila, Catherine, and Jenny were born in 1953, 1955, and 1957 respectively; Catherine passed away 15 hours after birth. In 1963, the Munros moved to Victoria where they opened Munro's Books. In 1966, their daughter Andrea was born.

Alice Munro's first collection of stories, Dance of the Happy Shades (1968), was highly acclaimed and won that year’s Governor General's Award, Canada’s highest literary prize. This success was followed by Lives of Girls and Women (1971), a collection of interlinked stories that was published as a novel.

Alice and James Munro were divorced in 1972. She returned to Ontario to become Writer-in-Residence at the University of Western Ontario. In 1976 she married Gerald Fremlin, a geographer. The couple moved to a farm outside Clinton, Ontario. They have since moved from the farm to a house in the town of Clinton, Ontario.

In 1978, Munro's collection of interlinked stories, Who Do You Think You Are?, was published (titled The Beggar Maid: Stories of Flo and Rose in the United States). This book earned Munro the Governor General’s Literary Award for a second time. From 1979 to 1982, she toured Australia, China and Scandinavia. In 1980 Munro held the position of Writer-in-Residence at both the University of British Columbia and the University of Queensland. Through the 1980s and 1990s, Munro published a short-story collection about once every four years to increasing acclaim, winning both national and international awards.

In 2002, her daughter Sheila Munro published a childhood memoir, Lives of Mothers and Daughters: Growing Up With Alice Munro.

Alice Munro's stories frequently appear in publications such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Grand Street, Mademoiselle, and The Paris Review.

In interviews to promote her 2006 collection The View from Castle Rock, Munro has suggested that she may not publish any further collections.[citation needed]

Her story "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" has been adapted for the screen and directed by Sarah Polley as the film Away From Her, starring Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent. It successfully debuted at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. Polley's adaptation was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, but lost to No Country for Old Men.

[edit] Writing style

Many of Munro's stories are set in Huron County, Ontario. Her strong regional focus is one of the features of her fiction. Another is the all-knowing narrator who serves to make sense of the world. Many compare Munro's small-town settings to writers of the U.S. rural South. As in the works of William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor, her characters often confront deep-rooted customs and traditions. However, the reaction of Munro's characters is less intense than their Southern counterparts. Thus, particularly with respect to her male characters, she may be said to capture the essence of everyman. Her female characters, though, are more complex. Much of Munro's work exemplifies the literary genre known as Southern Ontario Gothic.

Munro's work is often compared with the great short story writers. For example, the American writer Cynthia Ozick called Munro "our Chekhov." In Munro stories, as in Chekov's, plot is secondary and "little happens." As with Chekov, Garan Holcombe notes: "All is based on the epiphanic moment, the sudden enlightenment, the concise, subtle, revelatory detail." Munro's work deals with "love and work, and the failings of both. She shares Chekov’s obsession with time and our much-lamented inability to delay or prevent its relentless movement forward."[1]

A frequent theme of her work—particularly evident in her early stories—has been the dilemmas of a girl coming of age and coming to terms with her family and the small town she grew up in. In recent work such as Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (2001) and Runaway (2004) she has shifted her focus to the travails of middle age, of women alone and of the elderly. It is a mark of her style for characters to experience a revelation that sheds light on, and gives meaning to, an event.

Munro's spare and lucid language and command of detail gives her fiction a "remarkable precision," as Helen Hoy observes. Munro's prose reveals the ambiguities of life: "ironic and serious at the same time," "mottoes of godliness and honor and flaming bigotry," "special, useless knowledge," "tones of shrill and happy outrage," "the bad taste, the heartlessness, the joy of it." Her style places the fantastic next to the ordinary with each undercutting the other in ways that simply, and effortlessly, evoke life.[4] As Robert Thacker notes:

Munro's writing creates what amounts almost to an empathetic union among readers, critics most apparent among them. We are drawn to her writing by its verisimilitude — not of mimesis, so-called and... 'realism' — but rather the feeling of being itself... of just being a human being.[5]

Many critics have asserted that Munro's stories often have the emotional and literary depth of novels. The question of whether Munro actually writes short-stories or novels has often been asked. Alex Keegan, writing in Eclectica, has a simple answer: "Who cares? In most Munro stories there is as much as in many novels."[6]

[edit] Works

[edit] Awards and honours

In Canada, Munro has received three Governor General's Awards for English-language Fiction (the most for any author), two Giller Prizes, the Trillium Book Award and the Canadian Booksellers Award. Internationally, she has won the WH Smith Literary Award in the UK; the National Book Critics Circle Award and the O. Henry Award for Continuing Achievement in Short Fiction in the U.S.; the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction; the Rea Award for the Short Story; and the Libris Award. She has also won the Canada-Australia Literary Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize Regional Award for Canada and the Caribbean.

In 1986, Alice Munro was awarded the Marian Engel Award for her body of work. In 1993, she was awarded the Royal Society of Canada's Lorne Pierce Medal. In 1992, she was made a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Munro won the Giller Prize in 2004 for her short story collection Runaway. It was her second Giller; her first was in 1998 for The Love of a Good Woman. She is one of only two writers — the other is M. G. Vassanji — to have won the Giller Prize twice.

The Love of a Good Woman was also selected as a candidate in the CBC's 2004 edition of Canada Reads, in which it was advocated by opera singer Measha Brueggergosman.

Munro received the Medal of Honor for Literature from the U.S. National Arts Club in February 2005. The award, given annually for a body of work of literary excellence was presented to Munro at a ceremony in New York hosted by novelist Russell Banks that included tributes by former winner Margaret Atwood and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Cunningham [7]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Holcombe, Garan (2005). "Alice Munro". Contemporary Writers. London: British Arts Council. Retrieved on 2007-06-20. 
  2. ^ Meyer, M. Alice Munro. Meyer Literature. Retrieved on: November 21, 2007.
  3. ^ Merkin, Daphne (October 24, 2004) "Northern Exposures." New York Times Magazine." Retrieved on: February 25, 2008.
  4. ^ Hoy, Helen (1980). "Dull, Simple, Amazing and Unfathomable: Paradox and Double Vision In Alice Munro's Fiction". Studies in Canadian Literature 5 (1). University of New Brunswick. 
  5. ^ Thacker, Robert (1998) Review of Some other reality: Alice Munro's Something I've been Meaning to Tell You, by Louis K. MacKendrick. Journal of Canadian Studies, Summer 1998.
  6. ^ Keegan, Alex (Aug/Sept, 1998). "Munro: The Short Answer". Eclectica 2 (5). 
  7. ^ Munro wins top U.S. honour. Arts and Entertainment, CBC.ca. Retrieved on 2007-06-22.

[edit] References

BOOKS

  • Besner, Neil Kalman. Introducing Alice Munro's Lives of Girls and Women: a reader's guide. Toronto: ECW Press, 1990.
  • Blodgett, E. D. Alice Munro. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1988.
  • Carrington, Ildikó de Papp. Controlling the Uncontrollable: the fiction of Alice Munro. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1989.
  • Carscallen, James. The Other Country: patterns in the writing of Alice Munro. Toronto: ECW Press, 1993.
  • Cox, Alisa. Alice Munro. Tavistock: Northcote House, 2004.
  • Hallvard, Dahlie. Alice Munro and Her Works. Toronto: ECW Press, 1984.
  • Hebel, Ajay. The Tumble of Reason: Alice Munro's discourse of absence. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994.
  • Howells, Coral Ann. Alice Munro. New York: Manchester University Press, 1998.
  • MacKendrick, Louis King. Some Other Reality: Alice Munro's Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You. Toronto: ECW Press, 1993.
____ Ed. Probable Fictions: Alice Munro's narrative acts. Downsview, Ontario: ECW Press, 1983.
  • Martin, W.R. Alice Munro: paradox and parallel. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1987.
  • McCaig, JoAnn. Reading In: Alice Munro's archives. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2002.
  • Miller, Judith, ed. The Art of Alice Munro: saying the unsayable: papers from the Waterloo conference. Waterloo: Waterloo Press, 1984.
  • Munro, Sheila. Lives of Mother and Daughters: growing up with Alice Munro. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2001.
  • Pfaus, B. Alice Munro. Ottawa: Golden Dog Press, 1984.
  • Rasporich, Beverly Jean. Dance of the Sexes: art and gender in the fiction of Alice Munro. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1990.
  • Redekop, Magdalene. Mothers and Other Clowns: the stories of Alice Munro. New York: Routledge, 1992.
  • Ross, Catherine Sheldrick. Alice Munro: a double life. Toronto: ECW Press, 1992.
  • Smythe, Karen E. Figuring Grief: Gallant, Munro and the poetics of elegy. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1992.
  • Steele, Apollonia and Tener, Jean F., editors. The Alice Munro Papers: Second Accession. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1987.
  • Thacker, Robert. Alice Munro: writing her lives: a biography. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2005.
____ Ed. The Rest of the Story: critical essays on Alice Munro. Toronto: ECW Press, 1999.

PERIODICALS

  • Awano, Lisa Dickler. "Appreciations of Alice Munro." Virginia Quarterly Review 82.3 (Summer 2006): 91-107.] Interviews with various authors (Margaret Atwood, Russell Banks, Michael Cunningham, Charles McGrath, Daniel Menaker and others) presented in first-person essay format.
  • Beran, Carol. "The Pursuit of Happiness: A Study of Alice Munro's Fiction." Social Science Journal. 2000. 37.3 (2000): 329.
  • Buitenhuis, Peter. "The Wilds of the Past." Books in Canada 19.4 (May 1990): 19.
  • Canitz, Christa. and Seamon, Roger. "The Rhetoric of Fictional Realism in the Stories of Alice Munro." Canadian Literature. 150 (Autumn 1996): 67.
  • Clark, Miriam Marty. "Allegories of Reading in Alice Munro's 'Carried Away.'" Contemporary Literature. 37.1 (Spring 1996):49.
  • Creighton, David. "In Search of Alice Munro." Books in Canada 23.4 (May 1994): 19.
  • Crouse, David. "Resisting Reduction." Canadian Literature. 146 (Autumn 1995):51.
  • de Papp Carrington, Ildiko. "Definitions of a Fool: Alice Munro's 'Walking on Water.'" Studies in Short Fiction. 28.2 (Spring 1991):135.
____ "'Don't Tell (on) Daddy': Narrative Complexity in Alice Munro's 'the Love of a Good Woman.'" Studies in Short Fiction. 33.2 (Spring 1997): 159.
____ "Talking Dirty: Alice Munro's 'Open Secrets' and John Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men.'" Studies in Short Fiction. 31.4 (Fall 1994): 595.
____ "What's in a Title?: Alice Munro's 'Carried Away.'" Studies in Short Fiction. 20.4 (Fall 1993): 555.
  • Elliott, Gayle. "A Different Track: Feminist meta-narrative in Alice Munro's 'Friend of My Youth.'" Journal of Modern Literature. 20.1 (Summer 1996): 75.

PERIODICALS (cont.)

  • Fowler, Rowena. "The Art of Alice Munro: The Beggar Maid and Lives of Girls and Women." Critique. 25.4 (Summer 1984): 189.
  • Garson, Marjorie. "Alice Munro and Charlotte Bronte." University of Toronto Quarterly. 69.4 (Fall 2000): 783.
  • Genoways, Ted. "Ordinary Outsiders." Virginia Quarterly Review 82.3 (Summer 2006): 80-81.
  • Gittings, Christopher E.. "Constructing a Scots-Canadian Ground: Family history and cultural translation in Alice Munro." Studies in Short Fiction 34.1 (Winter 1997): 27
  • Hiscock, Andrew. "Longing for a Human Climate: Alice Munro's 'Friend of My Youth' and the culture of loss." Journal of Commonwealth Literature 32.2 (1997): 18.
  • Houston, Pam. "A Hopeful Sign: The making of metonymic meaning in Munro's 'Meneseteung.'" Kenyon Review 14.4 (Fall 1992): 79.
  • Hoy, H. "'Dull, Simple, Amazing and Unfathomable': Paradox and Double Vision In Alice Munro's Fiction." Studies in Canadian Literature/Études en littérature canadienne (SCL/ÉLC), Volume 5.1. (1980).
  • Lynch, Gerald. "No Honey, I'm Home." Canadian Literature 160 (Spring 1999): 73.
  • Levene, Mark. "It Was About Vanishing: A Glimpse of Alice Munro's Stories." University of Toronto Quarterly 68.4 (Fall 1999): 841.
  • Martin, W.R., and Ober, Warren. "The Comic Spirit in Alice Munro's Open Secrets: 'A Real Life' and 'The Jack Randa Hotel.'" Studies in Short Fiction 35.1 (Winter 1998): 41.
  • Mayberry, Katherine J. "Every Last Thing…Everlasting: Alice Munro and the limits of narrative." Studies in Short Fiction 29.4 (Fall 1992): 531.
  • McCombs, Judith. "Searching Bluebeard's Chambers: Grimm, Gothic, and Bible Mysteries in Alice Munro's 'The Love of a Good Woman.'" American Review of Canadian Studies 30.3 (Autumn 2000): 327.
  • McGill, Robert. "Somewhere I've Been Meaning to Tell You: Alice Munro's Fiction of Distance." Journal of Commonwealth Literature 37.1 (2002): 9.
____ "Where Do You Think You Are? Alice Munro's Open Houses." Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature. 35.4 (December 2002): 103.
  • Morgenstern, Naomi. "The Baby or the Violin? Ethics and Femininity in the Fiction of Alice Munro." Literature Interpretation Theory 14.2 (April-June 2003): 69.
  • Nunes, Mark. "Postmodern 'Piercing': Alice Munro's contingent ontologies." Studies in Short Fiction 34.1 (Winter, 1998): 11.
  • Pruitt, Virginia. "Gender Relations: Alice Munro's 'Differently' and 'Carried Away'." Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic 64.4 (Fall 2000): 494.
  • Ross, Catherine Sheldrick. "Alice Munro: A Double Life." Books in Canada 21.3 (April 1992): 16.
_____ "Too Many Things: Reading Alice Munro's 'The Love of a Good Woman.'" University of Toronto Quarterly 71.3 (Summer 2002): 786.
  • Rule, Jane. "A Tribute to Literary Mothers." Herizons 19.4 (Spring 2006): 26-27.
  • Simpson, Mona. "A Quiet Genius." Atlantic Monthly 288.5 (Dec 2001): 126.
  • Smythe, Karen. "The Ethics of Epiphany in Munrovian Elegy." University of Toronto Quarterly 60.4 (Summer 1991): 493.
  • Solotaroff, Ted. "Life Stories." Nation 259.18 (November 28, 1994): 665-668.
  • Somacarrera, Pilar. "Speech Presentation and 'Coloured' Narrative in Alice Munro's Who Do You Think You Are?" Textual Studies in Canada 10/11 (Winter 1988): 69.
  • Timson, J.. "Merciful Light." Maclean's 103.19 (May 7, 1990): 66.
  • Thacker, R. Review of Some other reality: Alice Munro's Something I've been Meaning to Tell You, by Louis K. MacKendrick. Journal of Canadian Studies, (Summer 1998).
  • Turbide, Diane. "The Incomparable Storyteller." Maclean's 107.42 (October 17, 1994): 46.
  • Walbert, Kate. "Munro Doctrine." Nation 250.19 (May 14, 1990): 678.
  • Weinhouse, Linda. "Alice Munro: Hard-luck stories or there is no sexual relation." Critique 36.2 (Winter 1995): 121.

[edit] External links


v • d • e
Scotiabank Giller Prize laureates
M.G. Vassanji (1994) · Rohinton Mistry (1995) · Margaret Atwood (1996) · Mordecai Richler (1997) · Alice Munro (1998) · Bonnie Burnard (1999) · Michael Ondaatje / David Adams Richards (2000) · Richard B. Wright (2001) · Austin Clarke (2002) · M.G. Vassanji (2003) · Alice Munro (2004) · David Bergen (2005) · Vincent Lam (2006) · Elizabeth Hay (2007)
v • d • e
Marian Engel Award Winners

Alice Munro (1986) · Audrey Thomas (1987) · Edna Alford (1988) · Merna Summers (1989) · Carol Shields (1990) · Joan Clark (1991) · Joan Barfoot (1992) · Sandra Birdsell (1993) · Jane Urquhart (1994) · Bonnie Burnard (1995) · Barbara Gowdy (1996) · Katherine Govier (1997) · Sharon Butala (1998) · Janice Kulyk Keefer (1999) · Anita Rau Badami (2000) · Elizabeth Hay (2001) · Terry Griggs (2002) · Elisabeth Harvor (2003) · Dianne Warren (2004) · Gayla Reid (2005) · Caroline Adderson (2006) · Diane Schoemperlen (2007)