On the evening of May 13, local time, Alice Munro, a famous Canadian writer and Nobel Prize winner in literature, died in Ontario at the age of 92.
In 2013, at the age of 82, Monroe won the Nobel Prize in Literature and was called "the master of contemporary short stories" by the jury. This is the first time that the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to Canada, and it is also the first time in history that a short story writer has won the Nobel Prize. After winning the award, she said in an interview, "I really hope that this will make people see the short story as an important art, not something to play with before writing a novel." ”
Alice Monroe (Source: Monroe's personal social media account)
The people who make up stories in the town
Monroe was born on July 10, 1931, in Wingom, Ontario, Canada, a town that would later be the setting of many of her short stories.
In "Rock Fort Landscape," Monroe tells the story of her ancestors who immigrated from Scotland to settle in Ontario, and also writes about her parents' acquaintance, love, and struggle. And she grew up there, and even after she moved, she kept imagining returning there through her writing.
She once said in an interview: "I reveled in this special land and found the feeling of home in the brick houses, the collapsed barn, the trailer park, the clunky old church......
Monroe grew up in a closed and conservative countryside, where girls did housework, knitted wool, taught each other husbands and children, few went to college, and it was even more unthinkable to be a writer. But she likes to make things up and tell herself. "I'm always making up stories. On the way to school, I have to walk a long way, and I always think about it while walking. Monroe mentioned in his keynote speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
At the age of 11, Monroe began writing poetry, and in high school, he began to imitate famous books like Wuthering Heights to write stories.
Monroe was most afraid of people saying to himself, "Who do you think you are?" This sentence later became the title of her fourth book, which consists of a set of stories about the heroine, Rose, who is unwilling to be mediocre, and struggles from a young girl to middle age in a dull and closed environment.
But life didn't go as planned, and there was no story for Monroe to fantasize about without worry.
At the age of 12, Monroe's mother became ill and his father's business began to decline. "It's terrible to have a lack of money and my mother's illness at the same time, but as an adolescent I was very self-preservation, and I didn't want to be tainted by tragedy and I didn't want to live in tragedy."
As his mother's condition progressed, Monroe's role in the family changed. She took over household chores — cleaning, cooking, caring for her younger siblings — and became more and more immersed in her own imagination, or thinking about problems.
The two-sided life of a housewife
The precious college years were the two years of Monroe's most wanton creation.
The scholarship at the University of Western Ontario arrived just in time for Monroe to attend the school's journalism major and switch to an English major the following year. "It was a little vacation in my life, a wonderful time. I've been doing household chores since I was a teenager. So, college was the only day in my life when I didn't have to do housework. Monroe said frankly in an exclusive interview.
But the scholarship was only enough for two years, and immediately after his second year of college, Monroe got married and began his decades-long life as a housewife. At the age of 20, she met her first husband, James Monroe, at the age of 22, and the two moved to Vancouver together, soon having their first child.
And during this time, Monroe never stopped writing. "When I was pregnant, I wrote like crazy, because I felt like I couldn't write anymore because I had a baby." However, Monroe proved to be perfectly capable of balancing family and writing, and wrote until he was in his eighties.
A few years later, Monroe welcomed his second daughter, Janie. Her daily life is filled with the noise of children, the parties, the gossip of housewives.
Beneath the bustling surface, Monroe is lonely and lonely. She didn't dare to tell others that she was a writer in addition to being a wife and mother.
But Monroe never gave up writing, knowing that writing was the only way to save her from mediocrity and triviality.
On June 23, 2013, the desk at Monroe's home (Photo: New York Times)
Monroe writes after the kids go to school, during naps, or in between chores. Monroe and James Monroe founded Monroe's bookstore, and after not having to go to work at the bookstore, Monroe wrote from morning to 2:30 p.m., and then began to do household chores.
Such a trivial daily routine may be the most suitable creative state for Monroe. "The only thing that would stop me from writing was writing as a profession — like when I was defined by the public as a writer and I was given an office to write."
Become the queen of short stories
At the age of 37, Monroe published her first book, The Dance of Happy Shadows. This collection of short stories, which vividly recreates the atmosphere of a small town and the love lives of boys and girls, was an instant hit, winning her her first Governor's Prize, Canada's highest literary award, the equivalent of the "Pulitzer Prize" in the United States.
Since then, she has steadily produced 14 books at a rate of one collection of short stories every three or four years. "I started writing the next story almost immediately." Monroe was afraid to stop, as if he would stop writing forever.
Her writing is simple, precise and expressive, and she has won a series of international and domestic literary awards, won various honors, and even enjoyed the reputation of "Chekhov of our time" and "Chekhov of Canada" in the world literary circle.
Monroe's works published by Yilin Press (Source: Yilin Press)
She initially chose to write short stories because Monroe lacked relatively complete time to write, and she had to compromise the balance between family and writing.
Years later, in the preface to a collection of novels, she said, "I never chose to write short stories, I used to want to write long novels." But if you need to be in charge of a home and take care of young children, especially before the invention of disposable diapers and washing machines, you will have a hard time finding the whole block. ”
Monroe had also tried to concentrate on writing a novel, but she found it difficult. In 1971, Monroe's only work known as a novel, The Lives of Girls and Women, was published, depicting the life of a young female artist. However, others consider the book to be "more of a short series".
Many of Monroe's novels have been adapted into film and television productions: "The Life of a Girl and a Woman" was made into a TV series; The collection of short stories "Hate, Friendship, Courtship, Love, Marriage" was adapted into "Love and Hate", which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival; "The Bear Comes from the Mountain" was made into the movie "Far from Her" and was nominated for an Oscar......
Won Canada's first Nobel Prize in Literature
On October 10, 2013, the headline of the evening news of the National Radio and Television Station of Canada was a cultural news that Alice Monroe had just won the Nobel Prize for Literature. This is Canada's first Nobel Prize in Literature, and it makes Monroe truly known to Chinese readers thousands of miles away.
Monroe's keynote speech after winning the Nobel Prize in Literature (Source: Nobel Prize YouTube account)
Monroe learned of his award from a morning call from his daughter, who was asleep at 4 a.m. when the Nobel committee called her. This award is not only an affirmation of her creative career, but also a recognition of the literary form of the short story.
If a long story is a movie, then a short story is a snapshot, which is not won by plot twists and character development, but by ingesting a key moment in life.
"Known for her refined storytelling, clarity and psychological realism characterize Monroe's writing," was what the Nobel Prize in Literature jury said of her.
Monroe was unable to make the long trip to Stockholm due to health reasons, and her daughter Jenny received the Nobel Prize for Literature for her mother. On the evening of December 7, Swedish local time, Monroe completed his keynote speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature in the form of a video.
"Thank you so much for this honor, there is nothing in the world that makes me so happy." Monroe said in his keynote speech, smiling like a child.
After winning the Nobel Prize, Monroe continued to live a quiet life in Canada. She announced her retirement from writing a few months before winning the Nobel Prize, and has kept her word ever since. Dear Life, published in 2012, was her last collection of works.
Modern Express/Hyundai + reporter Long Qiuli