Who is Nobel Prize Award winner Alice Munro?

I was truly delighted to learn that Alice Munro was awarded this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature. She is the first Canadian and the thirteenth woman to be awarded. She is also a short story writer rather than a novelist.

Alice Munro writes of life in small country towns, mainly in Ontario, and focuses on the details of everyday life, exploring that which universally makes us human. Her work is very accessible. I must admit that I often struggle with the works of the prize winners of the Nobel, Booker, and Miles Franklin.

Alice Munro’s writing has spoken to me at different stages of my life. I first read ‘Lives of Girls and Women’ in 1990 when preparing a senior English class for the HSC. The book, which is a connected series of stories about Del Jordan, is often classified as a novel. It was written in the 1970s and is regarded as a ‘feminist’ work, whatever that may mean. Throughout the stories, Del slowly develops and makes decisions that place her life in a certain point, although it is not the one she was originally aiming for.

I got to know many wonderful young girls while teaching at this time; saw them fall in love, study hard, have dreams and ambitions. Through the Internet, I have been able to keep in touch and see what wonderful women they have become as they enter their forties. In no case has life been easy or straightforward for them. Like Del Jordan, they’ve ended somewhere they didn’t see. Happily, they’ve made wiser choices than Del.

‘Dance of the Happy Shades’ is Alice Munro’s first book, but the one I read second for sheer pleasure. Life is never romantically easy for the characters in these stories, but it is always engrossing. Her eye for detail is so true. I particularly remember the description of the sandwiches that had been laid out for afternoon tea, drying in the summer heat in the title story.

Last year, ‘Dear Life’ was published and shortly afterwards Alice Munro announced her retirement at the age of 83. Again the stories focus on disillusionment and the burdening trivia of everyday life. Again her eye for detail is unwavering. I read this on my Kindle highlighting phrases that appealed to me, but I simply highlighted too many. One of the themes is the struggle between the narrator and her mother. Even all these years later, I really connected to this as the mother sounded so much like my stepmother. The title comes from a phrase in the story ‘Dear Life’, where the narrator is snatched up as a baby ‘for dear life’ from perceived danger. It’s a phrase often used and usually in the context of being rescued from danger. By the time we’ve reached sixty, we’ve been exposed to danger and threats and we’re in a position to know that life is dear and precious.

It is sad to think there will be no more Alice Munro stories, but it is wonderful she has received this award and many more people may discover her writing.

Alice Munro’s books are available via Booktopia: here

Image: life serial