Alice Munro, writer and Nobel Prize winner, dies at the age of 92

Munro was the celebrated author of short story collections such as “The Love of a Good Woman” and “Dear Life.”

Alice Munro, Nobel Prize winner and writer known primarily for her short stories, has died. She was 92 years old.

Munro’s family confirmed the author’s death to The Globe and the Post on May 13. Munro suffered from dementia for over ten years and died in her nursing home in Ontario.

“Alice Munro is a national treasure – a writer of tremendous depth, empathy and humanity whose work is read, admired and appreciated by readers across Canada and around the world,” said Kristin Cochrane, CEO of Penguin Random House Canada. “Alice’s writings have also inspired countless writers, and her work leaves an indelible mark on our literary landscape. All of us at Penguin Random House Canada mourn this loss and join our colleagues at Penguin Random House in the US, UK and around the world in appreciation for all that Alice Munro left behind.”

Munro was born in Ontario, Canada in 1931. Her father, Robert Eric Laidlow, was a fox breeder and her mother, Anne Clarke Laidlaw, was a teacher. Munro was the eldest of three children and had a younger brother born in 1936 and a younger sister born in 1937. She was an avid reader as a child and cited writers such as Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers and Flannery O’Connor as influences

Munro began writing fiction as a teenager, publishing her first short story in 1950 before going to the University of Western Ontario to study English and journalism. She often drew inspiration from her own background, incorporating elements such as her father’s fox farm and her mother’s Parkinson’s disease into her writing.

“You’re lucky to be born in a place where no one else does, because then you can say, ‘Obviously I can write better than anyone else in high school,'” Munro said. The Guardian 2013 about life as a writer from her hometown. “You have no idea about the competition.”

Munro published her first short story collection, Dance of the happy shadowsin 1968, which won Canada’s highest literary award, the Governor General’s Award. Her 1978 collection, Who do you think you are? also won the prize that year. In later years, Munro published the short story collections The love of a good woman (1998), Outliers (2004) and Dear Life (2012) among others.

The author’s work was considered revolutionary for the short story canon. Munro’s writing style tended to incorporate leaps in time, her native Ontario, and a focus on relationships. Many of her stories also centered on girls coming of age, such as 1964’s “Boys and Girls,” in which a young girl explores gender roles inside and outside the home.

“For years I thought stories were just practice until I found time to write a novel. Then I realized they were all I could do, so I faced it,” Munro said. The New Yorker of her writings in 2012. “I suppose my attempt to pack so much into stories was a kind of compensation.”

Dear Lifeone of her most notable collections, includes stories Munro wrote throughout her life and earned her the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013.

“I really hope this will make people think of the short story as an important art and not just something you play around with until you have a novel,” Munro said. The New York Times to win the coveted prize. The love of a good woman, won the Giller Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1998.

Some of Munro’s works have also been adapted into other media. Outliers was the basis for the 2016 Spanish film Julie. Another short story by her, Hate, friendship, courtship, love, marriage was adapted in 2013 Hate, Lovestarring Hailee Steinfeld and Kristin Wiig.

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Munro married her husband James Munro in 1951 and divorced in 1972. The couple had daughters, Sheila, Catherine, Jenny and Andrea. Catherine died of kidney failure on the day she was born. Eldest daughter Shiela wrote her memoirs in 2008, titled Lives of Mothers and Daughters: Growing Up with Alice Munro about her mother. James originally worked in a managerial position before the family opened the independent bookshop Munro’s Books, which still exists today. In 1976, Munro married geographer Gerald Fremlin, who died in 2013.

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