Alice Munro

Alice Munro (b. 1931) is a Canadian writer best known for her short stories. Her uncomplicated prose style often reveals complexity in development, especially through her unconventional use of time through her stories. She is the winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature as well as the 2009 Man Booker International Prize.

Born in Ontario, Munro began writing at a young age, publishing her first short story in 1950 while still attending the University of Western Ontario. Much of her work is set in the fictional Huron County, Ontario. Such a technique is familiar to fans of William Faulkner. However, the characters created by Alice Munro behave quite differently than the Southern Gothic of Faulkner. Therefore, her work has often been characterized as Southern Ontario Gothic.

Many of Alice Munro's stories revolve around the theme of a girl's coming of age and her reactions to the surrounding environment. Since 2001, however, many of Munro's stories concern middle aged and elderly women in the same world. Plot is often secondary to the detail and atmosphere in Alice Munro's work, and it has been the subject of intense literary scrutiny since at least the 1970s.

From 1951 to 1972, she was married to James Munro. The two had three daughters and operated Munro's Books bookstore in Victoria, Canada. In 1976, she married Gerald Fremlin, to whom she was married until his death in 2013. Her latest short story collection, Dear Life, appeared in 2012.