Some writers are read and remembered even if they do not receive a Nobel Prize, while others are read and forgotten for a short time, for the sake of the Nobel Prize. Alice Munro was the first of these. Even though she did not receive a Nobel Prize, she was one of the most-read writers.
Alice Munro has never left a place in my heart with her Nobel Prize. I noticed this in the news when she passed away on May 13, at the age of 92. I would say it is just like the great poet Louise Glück, who won the Nobel Prize in 2020, but it is not exactly similar. I will say, both of them received awards before the Nobel Prize. Well? Alice Munro, who won the Nobel Prize in 2013, is a widely read and loved writer, and Glück is one of the most profound poets of our age.
The American countryside is almost a 'literary mine' due to the abundance and goodness of its writers and because it constitutes the largest geography of American life and affects everything from economy to culture.
Alice Ann Munro (10 July 1931 – 13 May 2024) was a Canadian short story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. Her work is said to have revolutionized the architecture of the short story, especially in its tendency to move forward and backward in time, and with integrated short fiction cycles.
Why do we read so much and watch American countryside and movies all the time? Maybe it would be appropriate to discuss this through Alice Munro's books. The setting in Munro's stories is Canada, not America, but because of their similarities, they are close to each other.
As the only writer who writes stories and won the Nobel Prize solely for her book of stories, Munro is almost like one of the female characters she hosts in her stories. They are the women who are most affected by rural life, who do not change and resist change.
Their deprivation comes before their poverty. Lack of new things, excitement, colors, and, with the ironic emphasis of Dear Life, love. It is definitely emphasized that she is Canada's Chekhov, and what should not be forgotten is that, although she did not write a novel, these stories, which contain a lot of autobiographical elements, try to contain real-life and vital answers to the "they are asking you from the soul" approach. It should say explanations rather than answers.
Although she is known as the master of short stories, her stories are long. What makes them look taller than they actually are is written in the justification of the Nobel Prize: The Nobel was awarded to "his finely crafted stories that stand out with their clarity and psychological realism."
The fact that the characters in the stories are mostly women may be related to the fact that the hero motif is gradually disappearing from literature. The main characteristics of these characters, who are sometimes referred to as anti-heroes, are that they are ordinary, every day, and similar. However, with her ability to handle what is different and disparate within all kinds of similarities, Munro once again proves the value of sincerity, authenticity, and understatement in women's narratives.
Munro is a writer who is even more modest than her short story characters, and this is evident from the fact that she sees the wonderful stories she writes as a 'consolation prize': "For years, I thought I was writing stories as an exercise, and I thought I was slowly improving myself to write novels. Then I realized that was all I could do, and I mastered the stories that I initially saw as consolation prizes.” Munro's consolation prize turned out to be the Nobel Prize.
There is a photo of Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro hugging each other. Canada's two great gifts to literature. The first one tells about women with a feminist perspective and science fiction possibilities, and the second one tells about women's solidarity and the solidity of the classic story. In literature, we find solace in the way languages surround each other and embrace each other as we read. Let this be our reward!
Brief life story of Alice Munro
Alice Munro was born in Ontario in 1931. Dance of the Happy Shades (1968), by the master storyteller whom Canadian critics describe as "Our Chekhov"; Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You (1974); The Beggar Maid (1978); The Moons of Jupiter (1982); The Progress of Love (1986); My Youth Friend (1990); Open Secrets (1994); Castle Rock View (2006); Some Women (2009); Apart from Dear Life (2012), she also published a novel called Lives of Girls and Women (1971).
Throughout her writing career, Munro was deemed worthy of many awards such as Governor General in Canada, Man Booker International, Marian Engel, Trillium Kitap, Rea Öykü, PEN/Malamud, Giller, Libris, and O. Henry. She also won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature.