RIP Alice Munro

A great light has gone out. Generally acknowledged to be one of the best short story writers ever, the Canadian writer Alice Munro died yesterday. She was 92 years old. She was highly lauded by many, and received many awards, including the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. Most of her stories are set in rural Ontario, which is where Munro lived for most of her life, and most often focus on women in that milieu. She has been compared to fellow short story writers Katherine Anne Porter and Raymond Carver. Fellow writers have praised her highly. Edna O'Brien ranked her with William Faulkner and James Joyce as influences on her work. Cynthia Ozick called her "our Chekhov." (I drew on today's New York Times article/obituary, by Anthony DePalma, for some of the above.) I have long read and loved Munro's stories (and her one novel, which she later said was more a series of linked stories); her work is so very original, powerful, psychologically astute, and perceptive. I have posted about her work here (e.g., on 7/22/10, 12/6/12, 10/10/13, and 8/3/14). What I have written today seems vastly inadequate, but I hope readers either already know her work, or will seek it out.