Alice Munro

Alice Munro is one of the most distinguished and best-selling authors in the world. She is a celebrated Canadian writer, who has won 13 awards, including the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013.

Alice Munro was born Alice Ann Laidlaw on 10th July 1931, in Wingham, Ontario, Canada. She is the eldest of five siblings and belonging to a farming family, she had a close association with nature and wildlife. She grew up on a fox farm, going on long walks and horseback riding.

She went to school at the University of Western Ontario, where she read English Literature and studied under the famous author and mentor, Northrop Frye. After graduating in 1949, she began teaching university-level English in Oakville, and then went on to teach high school in London from 1951 to 1958.

In 1951, she married James Munro, another student from university. They lived in Vancouver for a few years before settling in Clinton, Ontario. In the same year, she started her writing career with a series of stories in The Canadian Forum magazine.

Alice Munro has written many short stories, focusing on the emotionally sensitive women and their struggles in life. Her novels include “Dance of the Happy Shades” (1968), “Lives of Girls and Women” (1971), “The Moons of Jupiter” (1982), “The Progress of Love” (1987), “Open Secrets” (1994), “Runaway” (2004), “The View From Castle Rock” (2006), and “Dear Life” (2012).

In 1969, she published her first collection of short stories titled “Dance Of The Happy Shades”. This collection of stories explored social issues and won her the Governor General's Award for Fiction. The 1960s to the 1980s was a very productive period for Alice Munro and many of her books were well-received.

In the early 2000s, Alice Munro's works became critically acclaimed and she won various international awards including the Man Booker International Prize in 2009, the Griffin Prize (2008 and 2009) and the O. Henry Award.

In 2013 Alice Munro was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for her life’s work. In her Nobel lecture, Alice Munro stated that her work was driven primarily by her short stories, which, she said, are “windows into categories of the true human experience.”

Alice Munro's books have been translated into thirty-four different languages and she is often compared to the likes of Anton Chekhov and Ernest Hemingway. Her works are known to portray the everyday lives of characters, men and women, and their unique and often mysterious problems.

Alice Munro has been subject to much critical attention over her many years of writing. Her works are highly praised around the world and among BritLit audiences and have been acknowledged by British writers such as John Updike, Margaret Atwood and Martin Amis.

Alice Munro will not be writing any more books, as she has since retired from writing. Her final book, “Dear Life”, was published in 2012.

Alice Munro's exceptional storytelling is notable for its frankness, and her writing style is supremely disciplined and unique. She has been a prominent figure in the literary world and has been a great influence on writers succeeding her, having achieved a Nobel Prize in her lifetime.