Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro

Lives of Girls and Women is an intensely readable, touching and very funny short story cycle that centres on Del Jordan, a young woman who journeys from the carelessness of childhood through an uneasy adolescence in search of love and sexual experience.

As Del dreams of becoming famous, suffers embarrassment about her mother, endures the humiliation of her body's insistent desires and tries desperately to fall in love, she grapples with the crises that mark the passage to womanhood.

(From Penguin Canada)

• Books you may be surprised to learn were challenged in Canada
• The lives of women, readers, and Alice Munro
• Alice Munro on the craft of writing short stories
• 11 books Alice Munro loves, and you will too
• 85 things to know about master short story writer Alice Munro
• Alice Munro, Canadian author who mastered the short story, dead at 92

Literary legend Alice Munro died on May 13, 2024 at the age of 92. The Canadian writer is revered worldwide as a master of the short story, with 14 acclaimed collections and a Nobel Prize the 13th woman and second Canadian, after Saul Bellows, to ever receive that honour.

Munro's work has won twoScotiabankGiller Prizes, three Governor General's Literary Awards and the Man Booker International Prize. Her first book,Dance of the Happy Shades, was released in 1968, and she continued to write stories, often contributing to The New Yorker, until retiring in 2013. In books likeLives of Girls and Women,The Love of a Good WomanandRunaway, Munro captured the inner lives of men and women in rural Canada. Her work is inspired by her own upbringing inWingham, Ont.

From the book

Interviews with Alice Munro

Alice Munro amazed by Nobel win

11 years ago

Duration 2:14

'Not under any illusion that it was the only good book around'

Rewind54:59Nobel prize winner Alice Munro on "Morningside" (Originally aired 1996)

Rewind presents an hour long vintage conversation between Peter Gzowski, long time host of CBC Radio's Morningside, and the brilliant short story writer Alice Munro, who won the Nobel Prize for literature last fall.

5 coolest things Alice Munro told CBC about her writing

8 years ago

Duration 2:04

Over the years, Alice Munro was interviewed by the CBC many times. Here are some memorable moments.

Writers and Company52:46Alice Munro on Runaway

A rare conversation with Canadas first winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. In this interview from 2004, Eleanor speaks with Munro about her Giller Prize-winning collection of short stories, Runaway.

Ideas53:59The Lives of Women, Readers and Alice Munro

On a cold, autumn night a group of women gather 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.