MUNRO, ALICE

born July 10, 1931, Wingham, Ont., Can. original name Alice Anne Laidlaw Canadian short-story writer who gained international recognition with her exquisitely drawn stories, usually set in southwestern Ontario, peopled by characters of Scotch-Irish stock. Munro's work is noted for its precise imagery and narrative style, which is at once lyrical, compelling, economical, and intense, revealing the depth and complexities in the emotional lives of ordinary individuals. Munro attended the University of Western Ontario and, after two years, left school and moved to Vancouver, British Columbia. Her first collection of stories was published as Dance of the Happy Shades (1968). It is one of her three collectionsthe other two being Who Do You Think You Are? (1978; also published as The Beggar Maid: Stories of Flo and Rose) and The Progress of Love (1986)awarded the annual Governor General's Literary Award for fiction. Her second collectionThe Lives of Girls and Women (1971), a group of coming-of-age storieswas followed by Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You (1974), The Moons of Jupiter (1982), Friend of My Youth (1986), A Wilderness Station (1994), and The Love of a Good Woman (1998). Her book Open Secrets (1994) contains stories that range in setting from the semicivilized hills of southern Ontario to the mountains of Albania.