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Canadian short story writer, and 2013 Nobel laureate in fiction Alice Munro died on May 13 at the age of 92. Munro was a giant of contemporary literature. That’s what the Nobel, and a lifetime achievement citation from the Man Booker International award, and the three Governor’s General awards from her native Canada evidence.

But it seems strange to think of an unassuming person who primarily wrote about people from the small south Ontario town she came from via the seemingly humble form of the short story as a giant. That the characterization is undeniably correct is a testament to her unique talent, and her persistent drive to look deeper into the lives of her characters. Her first short story collection, “Dance of the Happy Shades” in 1968 won that year’s Governor’s General award (Canada’s equivalent of a Pulitzer Prize), announcing a writer who had arrived fully formed.



Her early stories often explored the struggles of girls and young women trying to find a place in the world that seemed hostile to their desires. In the story, “Boys and Girls,” from “Dance of the Happy Shades,” the young narrator in the rural town endeavors to avoid the domestic life of her mother, but also learns that the male-dominated spaces can be hostile to someone with other dreams. Munro’s early prose is lowkey and spare, moving inexorably to an epiphanic moment where both the character and the reader are often surprised by a sudden swell of emotion or insight.

Munro’s sty.

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