Born: July 10, 1931, Wingham, Ontario, Canada
Alice Munro is a Canadian writer, known for stories focusing on the emotional lives of the inhabitants of rural Canada. Her tales, often set in southwestern Ontario, where she spent her childhood, are characteristically written from the point of view of a young or adolescent girl and address themes of particular interest to women. In 1977 Munro became the first Canadian to win the Canada-Australia Literary Prize (1977).
Born Alice Anne Laidlaw in Wingham, Ontario, Munro was educated at the University of Western Ontario. She began to write stories at the age of 15, and her first story, “The Dimensions of a Shadow,” was published in a student publication in 1950. In 1952 she moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, where she continued to write. Her first collection of short stories, Dance of the Happy Shades (1968), was an instant success, winning Canada’s highest literary honour, the Governor General’s Literary Award. Munro won the award again in 1978 for the collection Who Do You Think You Are? (1978; published as The Beggar Maid in the United States, 1979) and in 1986 for the collection The Progress of Love (1986).
Munro’s second book or novel Lives of Girls and Women, was published in 1971. She returned to Ontario shortly afterward, and after the publication of the collection Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You (1974) was named writer-in-residence at the University of Western Ontario.
Munro’s other short-story collections include The Moons of Jupiter (1982), Friend of My Youth (1990), Open Secrets (1994), and The Love of a Good Woman (1998). The stories in The Love of a Good Woman continue in Munro’s signature vein of observing women’s life and motivations, but many of the tales delve deeper into social and political subjects-such as generational conflicts, abortion and adultery-than do Munro’s previous works.
