Nobel Prize-winning author Munro passes away

One of the most esteemed contemporary writers, Canadian author Alice Munro, has passed away at the age of 92 in her home in Ontario, a spokesperson for her publisher confirmed on Tuesday (May 14).

A titan of short-story writing, Munro revolutionised the architecture of short stories and demonstrated that the format was worthy of the Nobel Prize. She published 14 original short-story collections and several short-story compilations. With this body of work, she became the first Canadian to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013.

Munro was a craftsman, known for her intricately paced short stories that could devastate a reader. Her characters often lived in rural Ontario, like Munro herself. In an interview after winning the Nobel Prize, she said that living in a small town gave her the freedom to write. “I don’t think I could have been so brave if I had been living in a town, competing with people on what can be called a generally higher cultural level,” she said. “I was the only person I knew who wrote stories, though I didn’t tell them to anybody, and as far as I knew, at least for a while, I was the only person who could do this in the world.”

Munro was born in 1931, outside of Wingham Ontario. After college, she moved to Victoria, British Columbia, and opened a bookstore, known as Munro’s Books, with her then-husband James, known as Munro's Books. Her first story collection, Dance of the Happy Shades won Canada’s prestigious Governor’s General’s Award. That kicked off a career that would span more than a dozen story collections, as well as the novel Lives of Girls and Women.

Throughout her long career, she was extremely consistent. She hardly ever failed to wow readers and critics with her quietly powerful language. In reviewing her last collection, 2012’s Dear Life, NPR critic Alan Cheuse wrote “Munro focuses on every aspect of our ordinary existence and makes it seem as extraordinary as it actually is.”

She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature the year after Dear Life was published, but she was “too frail” to attend the ceremonies. So instead of the usual lecture, she opted for an interview where she was asked “Do you want young women to be inspired by your books and feel inspired to write?” To which she replied, “I don’t care what they feel as long as they enjoy reading the book.”

“I want people to find not so much inspiration as great enjoyment. That’s what I want; I want people to enjoy my books, to think of them as related to their own lives in ways.”

(With inputs from agencies)