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The lives of women, readers and Alice Munro

A group of women in St. John's, Newfoundland gather on a cold, autumn night for their regular book club. Over snacks, wine and tea, they discuss Alice Munro's work, and how her stories illuminate some of the deepest issues in their own lives. Munro's uncanny ability to shine light on darkened recesses of our inner lives earned her the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013.
CBC Radio ·
Author Alice Munro looks in the distance while reading one of her books. Her mouth and nose are hidden behind her book.
Author Alice Munro attends a press conference at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, on June, 25, 2009. (Peter Morrison/The Associated Press)
Ideas53:59The Lives of Women, Readers and Alice Munro

Update May 14, 2024: Alice Munro, the Nobel Prize-winning writer who helped establish English Canadian fiction as a fixture in world literature, has died.

Her short stories revolutionized the genre with her trademark prose and deceptively simple styling, capturing the complex and complicated relationships we have with each other, including ourselves.

This episode originally aired March 8, 2017. Original story below:

A group of women in St. John's, Newfoundland gather on a cold, autumn night for their regular book club. Over snacks, wine and tea, they discuss Alice Munro's work, and how her stories illuminate some of the deepest issues in their own lives. Munro's uncanny ability to shine light on darkened recesses of our inner lives earned her the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013.

Ideas0:49Alice Munro's believes reading is like entering a house: she doesn't read to find out something particular. She reads to enter a created world, and experience its entire complexity.
Alice Munro's believes reading is like entering a house: she doesn't read to find out something particular. She reads to enter a created world, and experience its entire complexity.

Winning the Nobel Prize was the most prestigious of all the awards Alice Munro has received during her distinguished career. She was the first Canadian woman writer to be honoured by the Nobel (Saul Bellow won in 1976), and the only short story author ever to win it. 

Her stories focus on human relationships as seen through the lens of daily life, and they manage the epic complexity of a novel in a just few short pages. Little wonder she's been called "the Canadian Chekhov."

Six women were at the book club meeting in St. John's. Five of them are regulars, and on this occasion they've invited a friend of Alice Munro's to join them: the novelist, Joan Clark.

This episode interweaves excerpts from interviews with Alice Munro and from her stories — inspiring the women to see their own lives reflected, and refracted, through the imagination of one of Canada's most celebrated and beloved writers.

**This episode was produced by Chris Brookes, who died unexpectedly in 2023. The documentary is a testament both to his acumen as a globally-recognized radio maker, and Alice Munro's uncanny ability to reach readers around the world.