Canadian novelist -- and now Nobel prize winner -- Alice Munro sets her taut, acutely observed stories in the rural Ontario countryside where she grew up, focusing a stark lens on the frailties of the human condition.
The Swedish Nobel Academy honored Munro with its literature prize on Thursday, hailing her as a "master of the contemporary short story," and praising her "finely tuned storytelling, which is characterized by clarity and psychological realism. Some critics consider her a Canadian Chekhov."
Despite her vast success and an impressive list of literary prizes awarded over the past four decades, Munro, 82, remains as unassuming and modest as the characters in her collections of short stories and novels.
These are usually women who do not fit the normal stereotype of the beautiful, ravishing heroine, possibly reflecting the puritan values of her childhood.
"She is not a socialite. She is actually rarely seen in public, and does not go on book tours," commented American literary critic David Homel.
As brilliant, dignified and elegant as Munro is, she is sometimes described as the complete opposite of another great dame of Canadian literature -- Margaret Atwood.
Born on July 10, 1931 in Wingham, Ontario, she grew up in the countryside. Her father Robert Eric Laidlaw raised foxes and poultry, while her mother was a small town schoolteacher.
At just 11 years old, she decided she wanted to be a writer, and never wavered in her career choice.
"I think maybe I was successful in doing this because I didn't have any other talents," she explained in an interview posted on YouTube.
"I'm not really an intellectual," Munro said. "I was an okay housewife but I wasn't that great. There was never anything else that I was really drawn to doing so nothing interfered in the way life interferes for so many people."
"It always does seem like magic to me."
Munro's first story "The Dimensions of a Shadow" was published in 1950 while she was studying at the University of Western Ontario.
It was at school that she met her first husband James Munro. The couple married in 1951 and moved to Vancouver in westernmost Canada, where they raised three girls.
In 1963, they bought a house in Victoria and opened a bookstore, Munro's Books, described by author Allan Fotheringham as "the most magnificent bookstore in Canada, possibly in North America."
Munro was three times awarded the Governor General's Award for fiction, first for "Dance of the Happy Shades" published in 1968. "Who Do You Think You Are" (1978) and "The Progress of Love" (1986) also won Canada's highest literary honor.
Her short stories often appeared in the pages of prestigious magazines such as The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly, with her latest collection "Dear Life" appearing in 2012.
"She writes about women for women, but does not demonize men," said Homel.
Her subjects and her writing style, such as a reliance on narration to describe the events in her books, have earned her the moniker "our Chekhov," in reference to the 19th century Russian playwright Anton Chekhov -- a term affectionately coined by Russian-American short story writer Cynthia Ozick.
Munro herself has said she writes about the "underbelly of relationships," adding she sets her stories in Canada "because I live life here at a level of irritation which I would not achieve in a place that I knew less well."
"There are no such things as big and little subjects," she has said. "The major things, the evils, that exist in the world have a direct relationship to the evil that exists around a dining room table when people are doing things to each other."
In a 2010 interview, she said she wanted readers "to feel something is astonishing -- not the 'what happens' but the way everything happens," she explained, adding that "long short story fictions do that best" for her as opposed to full-length novels.
After Munro's first marriage ended in divorce in 1972, she took a post as a writer-in-residence at her alma mater in Ontario.
Four years later, she remarried, to geographer Gerald Fremlin, and published new works every four years on average.
Munro said earlier this year that she was "probably" not going to write anymore. She insisted in an interview with the New York Times that she meant to retire and said "Dear Life" would be her last work.
Her story "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" was adapted for the screen by Sarah Polley as the film "Away from Her," and in 2009 she won the prestigious Man Booker International Prize for her body of work.
The Booker panel praised her originality and depth.
"Alice Munro is mostly known as a short story writer and yet she brings as much depth, wisdom and precision to every story as most novelists bring to a lifetime of novels," they said.
"To read Alice Munro is to learn something every time that you never thought of before." -- AFP
AFP
Thu Oct 10 2013
Cukup bersediakah Portugal & Ronaldo masih berbisa?
Kini, misi besar digalas oleh Roberto Martinez untuk meletakkan Portugal sebagai satu pasukan yang 'digeruni', sekali gus memberikan saingan hebat dalam Euro 2024.
Sekat kenaikan pangkat jika sorok salah laku lahirkan penjawat awam cakna tanggungjawab - Cuepacs
Ia perlu dilihat sebagai langkah memastikan perkhidmatan awam sentiasa berada pada tahap terbaik.
Yat Tex Garage sewa satu panggung tonton The Experts
Keterujaan menonton Filem The Experts membuatkan kumpulan motosikal berkuasa besar Yat Tex Garage sanggup menyewa satu panggung bagi menyaksikan naskhah berkenaan.
Fahmi sampaikan Warkah Persilaan Istiadat Pertabalan Agong kepada Tun Juhar
Fahmi hari ini mengadakan kunjungan hormat ke atas Tun Juhar di Istana Seri Kinabalu di sini bagi menyampaikan Warkah Persilaan ke Istiadat Pertabalan Yang di-Pertuan Agong ke-17 Sultan Ibrahim.
Kualiti peserta Debat MRSM Se-Malaysia Piala TPM 2024 meningkat ketara
Kualiti lebih 500 pendebat yang mengambil bahagian dalam Debat MRSM Se-Malaysia Piala Timbalan Perdana Menteri 2024, meningkat dengan ketara sekali.
Sehubungan itu, Pengerusi Majlis Amanah Rakyat (MARA), Datuk Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki, menganjurkan agar pemenang debat diberi pendedahan dalam pertandingan di peringkat universiti, termasuk di peringkat antarabangsa.
Sehubungan itu, Pengerusi Majlis Amanah Rakyat (MARA), Datuk Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki, menganjurkan agar pemenang debat diberi pendedahan dalam pertandingan di peringkat universiti, termasuk di peringkat antarabangsa.
MAHA 2024 menggagas peluang dan inovasi pertumbuhan pertanian global
Pameran Pertanian, Hortikultur dan Agro Pelancongan (MAHA) 2024 yang akan diadakan pada 11 hingga 22 September 2024 di MAEPS, Serdang, merupakan MAHA edisi khas 2024 sempena meraikan 100 tahun penganjuran.
Pra sambutan ulang tahun ke-248 kemerdekaan Amerika Syarikat
Sempena pra sambutan hari kemerdekaan Amerika Syarikat yang ke 248 oleh kedutaanya di Kuala Lumpur.
Namun di sebalik sambutan itu, kita kedengaran suara-suara di luar yang menggesa Amerika Syarikat supaya tidak terus mendiamkan diri berhubung isu Palestin.
Perincian lanjut kita bersama rakan setugas Umavathi Ramayah.
Namun di sebalik sambutan itu, kita kedengaran suara-suara di luar yang menggesa Amerika Syarikat supaya tidak terus mendiamkan diri berhubung isu Palestin.
Perincian lanjut kita bersama rakan setugas Umavathi Ramayah.
Ringgit ditutup rendah berbanding dolar US
Ringgit ditutup rendah berbanding dolar US disebabkan kekurangan minat belian sementara Indeks Dolar Amerika Syarikat (DXY) mencatatkan kenaikan, melepasi paras 105 mata.
Sultan Pahang titah atasi kesesakan Cameron Highlands
Sultan Pahang bertitah masalah trafik sesak dan status pembangunan di Cameron Highlands perlu diberi perhatian.
Kementerian kaji dasar bertepatan tangani masalah pencemaran
Kementerian Sumber Asli Dan Kelestarian Alam sedang mengkaji dasar bertepatan bagi mengatasi masalah pencemaran plastik dengan lebih berkesan.