Canadian writer Alice Munro. Biography of Alice Munro
Alice Munro honored for her contribution to the modern story
The Swedish Academy has named the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature - it turned out to be the Canadian writer Alice Munro, who has earned fame as a writer of short stories. Traditionally, the Nobel Committee rarely gives preference to this genre - but here the tradition is broken. Thus, the Canadian became the 13th woman who received this prestigious literary award. The last time, in 2009, Herta Müller from Germany became the female laureate.
Alice Munro
Alice Munro was hailed as "a master of the modern story," according to the Swedish Academy's decision.
The writer has the Booker Prize, three Canadian Governor General's Prizes in the field of fiction literature.
Munro was born 82 years ago in Ontario to a family of farmers. She began writing as a teenager and published her first short story, Dimensions of the Shadow, in 1950 while at university when she worked as a waitress.
After the divorce, Alice decided to become a writer at the University of Western Ontario. Her first collection (A Dance of Happy Shadows) won Munro the Governor General's Award, Canada's highest literary award.
Many of Munro's works are set in Huron County, Ontario. American writer Cynthia Ozick calls Munro "Our Chekhov".
The prose of Alice Munro shows the ambiguity of life - both ironic and serious. According to many critics, Munro's stories often have the emotional and literary depth of novels.
The awarding of the Alice Munro Prize was commented on by MK writer Dmitry BYKOV.
It is symptomatic that for a long time the master of the short form was awarded for the first time. She is a novelist, a storyteller, the maximum size of her stories is 20+ pages. This is very good, because indeed humanity has begun to think faster. In general, the genre of the short form is always more difficult. Her stories are more like dreams, and getting a good dream is very difficult. It's good that this is story-like prose, that these are not some amorphous texts, but narrative texts and always dynamic. Munro hasn't been translated much into Russian. Personally, I have an idea about her in two or three things, but they were done very hard and well.
- American writer Cynthia Ozick called Munro "Our Chekhov". Can you agree with her?
In no case. Here is what Chekhov and Munro have in common: Chekhov is the pathos of saying out loud things that are uttered only with very strong anger. Munro has a very strong pathos of irritation with the realities of the world. But Chekhov's subtexts and semitones are not given to her. I don't think she wants to. She is more like her great namesake Hector Hugh Munro, who worked under the pseudonym of Saki, a master of black humor. Alice Munro is a master with a masculine hard hand.
- Munro's stories have a strong religious focus. Is this relevant to literature now?
She took a lot from Flannery O'Connor - and the plots are similar, and the pathos of a bleak attitude to the world. She was a devout Catholic and a serious religious thinker. I wouldn't call Munro a religious writer. Her attitude towards God is one of demanding questioning, just like Conner's. I don't think she is a religious thinker, rather she is a suffering woman.
- In recent years, the Nobel Prize has often been given to writers with a public position ...
- That's right, the Nobel Prize is awarded for two things. Or for the appearance of a new point on the world map, a new topos, a country created by the author. Or for a rigid moral code, for the idealism that Nobel bequeathed. Munro is a case of moral idealism. She did not create her own special Canada. But the moral code - the main requirement of Nobel - cannot be taken away from her, therefore she deserves this award, as all previous laureates deserve.
- Should we expect domestic publishing houses to translate it into Russian?
- Recognition of the Nobel Prize - does not mean success. Some of the laureates were translated and until now these texts are gathering dust, not parsed. And even such wonderful authors as the Englishwoman Doris Lessing: her "Fifth Child" was sold out, but the rest did not ...
Among those who were also predicted a literary "Nobel" was Svetlana Aleksievich from Belarus, known not only for her literary ("War has no woman's face" (1985), "Zinc Boys" (1991), "Charmed by Death" (1993-1994 ), "Chernobyl Prayer"), but also social activities. In 2007, Belarus reported that her works had been removed from reading lists for study and extracurricular reading as part of an attempt to "minimize the use of works by opposition writers." In recent years, the writer lives in Europe.
Among the favorites was the American writer Joyce Carol Oates, one of the leading novelists in the United States. However, Oates has been acting as a "Nobel favorite" for the last quarter of a century.
The forecasts of those who considered the cult Japanese Haruki Marukami to be the favorite for the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature did not come true. In any case, in the lists of bookmakers, the name of the author of the novels "Norwegian Wood", "1Q84" and "Kafka on the Beach" was in the top.
Among other writers who are worthy of the Nobel Prize-2013, the authors of forecasts named American writers Thomas Pynchon, Philip Roth. The names of such poets as Ko Un (South Korea), Adonis (Syria), Ngugi wa Tiongo (Kenya) and others were mentioned.
Recall that last year the Nobel laureate was the Chinese novelist Mo Yuan.
Canadian writer, Nobel Prize winner in literature Alice Munro (Alice Munro), nee Laidlaw, was born July 10, 1931 in Wingham, Canada in the family of a farmer and a school teacher.
Upon graduation, she entered the University of Northern Ontario, where she majored in journalism and English. She left the university in 1951 and married James Munro. The couple moved to Vancouver, and in 1963 to Victoria, where they opened the Munro Books store.
In 1972, Alice took up a writer-in-residence position at the University of Western Ontario.
In 1980, she became a writer-in-residence at the University of British Columbia (Canada) and the University of Queensland (Australia).
In 1968, a collection of her short stories, Dance of the Happy Shadows, was published, which was awarded the Canadian Governor General's Literary Award. Then the writer's books "Lives of Girls and Women" (1971), "Something I wanted to tell you" (1974), "And who are you, in fact, are you?" (1978), which also received critical acclaim.
During the years of fruitful literary work, Alice Munro published collections of short stories Moons of Jupiter (1982), Love's Progress (1986), A Friend of My Youth (1990), Open Secrets (1994), A Good Woman's Love, ( 1998), "Hatred, Friendship, Courtship, Love, Marriage" (2001), "Fugitive" (2004), "View from Castle Rock" (2006), "Too Much Happiness" (2009) and others. In 2012, her last book, Dear Life, was written.
Munro's stories focus on human relationships through the prism of everyday life, which is why the writer is called the "Canadian Chekhov".
Munro's works have been translated into 20 languages.
The writer has been married twice. Her first husband was James Munro. In the family of Alice and James Munro, daughters Sheila (1953), Katherine (1955, died shortly after childbirth), Jenny (1957) and Andrea (1966) were born.
Munro remarried geographer Gerald Fremlin in 1976, who died in April 2013.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources
Canadian writer Alice Munro has just received the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature. This is the first time that a writer living in Canada has received such high recognition. The previous and only Canadian to this day to receive such an award was Saul Bellow, but he was only born in Canada and lived all his life in the United States. Saul Bellow received his Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976. The selection of Alice Munro by the Nobel Committee in 2013 is a great gift to a modern thinking and reading Canada, and cannot be considered a political statement, as was the case with the little popular Doris Lessing, Orhan Pamuk and Harold Pinter. The Nobel Committee noted that Alice Munro is simply an excellent and very accessible master of psychological storytelling, her books regularly appear on bestseller lists, are encouraged by reader and professional prizes and are actively sold.
Alice Munro is now 82 and recently announced that she is leaving the writing business. In April 2013, she buried her husband. It would seem that her life is ending. However, with the award of the prize, her life will most likely only begin, because now there will definitely be trips, meetings with readers, reprints of books, etc.
Munro is especially close to me as a resident of Canadian Victoria, where she lived for many years with her first husband, James Munro, before her divorce. In 1963, her husband opened a new bookstore in the old post office called Munro Books. This store is known and loved by all Victorians who prefer "intellectual" literature. When I was fond of Murakami's work, it was in this store that I could find the largest selection of his books. In addition, the building itself is an architectural monument of the 19th century and is listed in all tourist routes around the city as a noteworthy attraction. I stopped by this store today to see how its management (and ex-husband, who still runs the store) reacted to the announcement of the award. The store has a new stand dedicated exclusively to the work of Alice Munro, with a simple, printed on the printer, but sincere congratulations. Books from the stand were quickly sold out by readers. The heightened readership of Munro's books is being reported today by other bookstores in the city through the local newspaper.
Alice Munro was born in 1931 to a farmer and teacher in the small town of Wingham in southern Ontario, Canada. In such a city, it was unthinkable for a woman to engage in literary work in those years. However, young Alice had literary talents, and at the end of school she received a scholarship to study journalism at the University of Western Ontario. While still a student, she sold her first story to the CBC Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. A stormy romance and a wedding with classmate James Munro did not allow him to graduate from the university. The newlyweds moved to Victoria. A few years later, Alice Munro was already the mother of three children and could not even think about a literary career. Her whole life now consisted in one word: housewife. She recalls that by the age of 30 she could not even write sentences. Such a quick destruction of all her literary plans plunged Alice into a serious depression. However, with the opening of the Munro Books store, things went well for my husband. For some time, Alice worked at her husband's store, and this allowed her to communicate with readers and with books. After breaking with her husband, she came out of depression, went to her hometown and published her first book, Dance of the Happy Shadows, for which she received Canada's highest literary award, the Governor General's Prize, in 1968.
Her best books include her latest autobiographical publication Dear Life (winner of the 2013 Trillium Book Prize), the novel in short stories The Fugitive (Giller Prize 2004), united by stories from the life of one woman in different years, the collection of short stories Love to a Good Woman (Giller Prize, 1998), which chronicles the lives of several very different women, the collection of short stories The Beggar's Handmaid (Booker Prize, 1980) - the story of a mother and her adopted daughter, the collection of stories, Girls' Lives, in which tells about the growing up of a village girl in the 1940s.
Two of Alice Munro's works have been filmed. The short story "The Bear on the Hill" became the basis of the popular movie Far From Her. The story of this film is about the test of feelings of an elderly couple after the sick wife finds out that her husband was unfaithful to her and never regretted it. Love and Hate, based on the book Hate, Friendship, Courtship, Love, Marriage, was recently screened at the Toronto Film Festival. This story is about the psychological torment of a middle-aged woman.
I have not read any of Munro's stories, but this story reminded me strongly of the stories of another great writer, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, whose work I love and appreciate.
Alice Munro is also called the Canadian Chekhov. Like Chekhov, she prefers short forms. The Nobel Committee named her a master of modern short story, announcing the laureate: "Alice Munro can tell the story of an entire generation in 20 pages." There is little action in her stories, but a lot of psychology, especially female. Critics have always expressed a lot of praise for her. Alice Munro was noted for the accuracy of the language, the well-chosen details, the unexpectedness of her stories, the masterful ability to create a special atmosphere, for her excellent knowledge of human psychology. Critics also point out that no other author has explored the phenomenon of romantic love with such accuracy and has not shown that love means completely different things for each person. Other famous Canadian writers speak of her with respect, for example, Margaret Atwood, whom I will write about in this blog.
Another feature of Munro's style is the fact that often the action of her stories takes place in small towns in the southwest of the central Canadian province of Ontario, almost on the border with the United States. The stories often tell about some important, complex and very universal, but left unnoticed stories that are associated with these towns. For this reason, local residents could not always appreciate her work. It seems to many of her former and current neighbors that her stories reveal a lot of too personal and real family secrets, and that it is quite easy to determine from her books whose story belongs to which local family.
The example of Alice Munro once again proves a rule that Dostoevsky actively used: even obscure people in far and small places can tell us stories that will enrich all of humanity. It is possible that only these inconspicuous people can tell us these stories, because they would not have happened if their heroes were visible and important people. This feature emphasizes the humanistic nature of Munro's work. She obviously loves her characters and is interested in them, no matter how small and boring they may seem on the surface. I like this humanistic pathos much more than the misanthropic nature of the work of other great authors (for example, Franz Kafka).
Alice Ann Munro (Eng. Alice Ann Munro; born July 10, 1931, Wingham, Ontario, Canada) is a Canadian writer, winner of the Booker Prize, three-time winner of the Canadian Governor General's Award for fiction, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature for 2013.
Munro was born in Wingham, Ontario to a family of farmers. Her father's name was Robert Eric Laidlaw and her mother, a schoolteacher, was Ann Clark Laidlaw. She began writing as a teenager and published her first short story, "Shadow Dimensions," in 1950 while studying at the University of Northern Ontario. During this period, she worked as a waitress. In 1951 she left the university where she had majored in English since 1949, married James Munro and moved to Vancouver. Her daughters Sheila, Katherine, and Jenny were born in 1953, 1955, and 1957 respectively; Catherine died 15 hours after birth. In 1963 they moved to Victoria where they opened a bookstore called Munro's Books. In 1966, Andrea's daughter was born. Alice Munro and James divorced in 1972. She returned to Ontario to become a writer at the University of Western Ontario. In 1976 she married Gerald Fremlin, a geographer. The couple moved to a farm near Clinton, Ontario. Later they moved from the farm to the city. Alice Munro's first collection, A Dance of Happy Shadows (1968), was highly acclaimed, winning Munro the Governor General's Award, Canada's highest literary award. This success cemented The Lives of Girls and Women (1971), a collection of interconnected short stories published as a novel. In 1978, the collection "And who are you, in fact, is this?" Was published. This book allowed Munro to win the Governor General's Award for the second time. From 1979 to 1982 she toured Australia, China and Scandinavia. In 1980, Munro was a writer-in-residence at the University of British Columbia and the University of Queensland. In the 1980s and 1990s, Munro published storybooks about every four years. In 2002, her daughter Sheila Munro published a memoir about her childhood and her mother's life. Alice Munro's stories appear frequently in publications such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Grand Street, Mademoiselle, and The Paris Rewiew. Her latest collection, Too Much Happiness, was published in August 2009. Her story "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" was adapted for screen, directed by Sarah Polley, as Far From Her, starring Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent. The film debuted at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival. Polley's adaptation was nominated for an award Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay but lost.
News came in today that Ellis Munro received the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature. “pressing on the pedestal” the Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexandrovna Aleksievich, about whom I, in anticipation of her victory, made a post in advance. Guilty! Hurry! I will not throw away the material, I am sure that next year Aleksievich will be a Nobel Prize laureate and the post will come in handy. Alice Munro, also repeatedly "stormed the Nobel peak.
The network has her books and a film, I highly recommend it, as well as getting acquainted with the works of Aleksievich.
One of the main features of the stories included in this collection is that, with the exception of one, they are written in a kind of detached style. All experiences, even the most emotional ones, are conveyed rather dryly, unemotionally, calmly, somehow in autumn - cool, but still not cold in winter. Basically, this is achieved by the fact that in most stories the narration is conducted in the vein of memories - all events, whether joys or upheavals, have already been experienced and they are already an integral part of a person. The heroines (and the protagonists of each of the stories are women, even if it seems that the story is mainly about a man, the center of the picture is invariably the representative of the fair sex) reminisce with pleasure, although sometimes without it. Plus, almost every story ends with a figurative ellipsis, forcing, if desired, to think out what happened to the characters next.
All this is inherent in 9 out of 10 stories that make up the collection "Too Much Happiness". But this description cannot be applied to the chronologically last short story (rather even a small story), which just gave its name to this book. It is written in a completely different way. The whole narration is conducted in such a way that one gets the feeling that it seems to be happening in the present, i.e. the heroine experiences, lives emotions right here and now, although in fact the action takes place at the end of the 19th century. And the emotionality of this story is easily felt, especially in contrast to the previous ones. Also, this story is the only one where a clear point is set, a figurative point, and after the actual point, thought does not rush into a hypothetical future, but rather seeks to "gaze" at the past, the multiple past.
Probably, the above signs indicate that the author owns a variety of narrative styles and for each story, the one that suits him most is deliberately chosen. For most of the collection, it seemed that Alice Munro wrote in the only style available to her abilities and simply could not do otherwise.
"Too much happiness" I read for a long time - more than six months. After each novel, he took a rather long break. Most often, I did this consciously in order to try to understand the next read part of the collection. But in the end, I must admit that I understood only a tiny fraction of these stories. In none of them you will find a clear answer about what the essence of this story is, what it is about, what the author wanted to say, what emotions he wanted to evoke. It's probably not bad. Unless, of course, you are able to grasp the essence. I haven't been able to. Maybe because I'm not a woman.