Renowned writer Alice Munro, who published her first short stories while studying at Western University, died May 13 in Port Hope, Ont.
She was 92.
Tributes from around the world have acknowledged the impact of the celebrated author, called the “master of the contemporary short story” when she won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013.
“Alice Munro is counted among Western’s most extraordinary alumni. Her works, which so vividly illustrated the lives of her characters, are loved by millions worldwide and deeply rooted in her life in rural Ontario,” said Western President Alan Shepard.
“She will be remembered as one of Canada’s greatest literary icons. We are grateful for her contributions and honoured to continue her legacy through the Alice Munro Chair in Creativity.”
The chair, launched in 2018, sets the tone for Western’s creative culture. It is intended to inspire student writers, build diverse communities across campus and foster creative expression of all kinds, in addition to honouring Munro’s immense contributions to the literary field. Chairholders have included major literary figures such as Nino Ricci, Ivan Coyote and, currently, Sheila Heti.
“Alice Munro is widely considered one of the greatest writers of the short story. She attended Western as an undergraduate, and her first publications were stories in the undergraduate publication, Folio (published from 1947 to 1972),” said Jan Plug, acting dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities.
“Canada’s only winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, she is considered by many our greatest writer.”
Munro, DLitt’76, was born in Wingham, Ont. in 1931.
She received an honorary degree in literature from Western in 1976, the only one she ever accepted.
Munro’s literary legacy is tied to her life in southwestern Ontario.
“Her writing offers readers the gift of engaging with this regional tapestry from intimate and often unexpected vantage points, conveyed through the most searching and eloquent prose,” said Pauline Wakeham, professor and vice-chair of the department of English and writing studies.
Beginning her undergraduate studies at Western on a scholarship in 1949, Munro first pursued journalism before switching to English.
In 1951, she married James Munro and moved to B.C., where the couple ran a bookstore. Munro raised three daughters before returning to Ontario. She later married Gerald Fremlin, a geographer and cartographer she met briefly at Western, after his poems were featured in Folio.
“Alice Munro is Canada’s finest writer,” said David Bentley, a Distinguished University Professor at Western and Carl F. Klinck Professor in Canadian Literature. “We can take special pleasure in the fact that her extraordinary career began here at Western.”
Munro’s Western homecoming in 1974 brought her back to the university as writer-in-residence. During that time she was writing her collection, Who Do You Think You Are?, which won the Governor’s General’s Award.
That title was later adopted for a popular Western podcast hosted by the award-winning Canadian author Nino Ricci, inaugural holder of the Alice Munro Chair in Creativity in the Faculty of Arts & Humanities.
Ricci offered the highest praise for Munro.
“Alice Munro has been a figure of inestimable importance in Canadian literature and Canadian culture, someone who raised the bar for all of us and showed us the creative heights to which we might strive,” he said.
“It was a tremendous honour for me to serve as the first Alice Munro Chair in Creativity, a position that pays fitting tribute to her contribution and to the crucial role the creative arts can play in fostering creativity thinking across the entire range of university disciplines.”
Her excellence has been recognized with numerous writing awards, including the Man International Booker Prize in 2009, Giller Prize in 1998 and 2004 and Governor General’s Literary Award.
Munro was the first Canadian woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013, more than 100 years after it was first awarded in 1901.
“I really couldn’t believe it; I was so happy,” she said at the time. “I haven’t gotten over the delight yet. Because I work, generally, in the short story form, this is a special thing to get this recognition.”
For Munro, pursuing that passion was a lifelong dream.
“I planned on being a writer at an early age,” she said in a 2005 interview with the Western Alumni Gazette.
“I was so involved in just hoping to be a writer and planning what I would write. That started when I was about 11 years old. The most important thing in my life was to do that.”
