Alice Munro was born in Wingham, Ontario. Her father, Robert Eric Laidlaw, was a fox and mink (貂) farmer, and her mother, Anne Clarke Laidlaw, was a school teacher. Munro began writing as a teenager. Her first story, The Dimensions of a Shadow, came out in 1950 while she was studying at the University of Western Ontario. During this period she worked as a waitress, a tobacco picker, and a library clerk (职员).
Munro’s first collection of stories, Dance of the Happy Shades (1968), won the Governor General’s Award, Canada’s highest literary (文学的) prize. That success was followed by Lives of Girls and Women (1971), a collection of interlinked (相互关联的) stories sometimes incorrectly described as a novel. In 1978, Munro’s collection of interlinked stories Who Do You Think You Are? was published. This book earned Munro a second Governor General’s Literary Award. From 1979 to 1982, she toured Australia, China and Scandinavia. In 1980, Munro held the position of writer in residence (住校) at both the University of British Columbia and the University of Queensland. Through the 1980s and 1990s, she published a short-story collection about once every four years.
On 10 October, 2013, Munro was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. She is known as a “master of the contemporary (当代的) short story”. She is the first Canadian and the 13
th woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.
小题1: Where does Alice Munro come from?
A. the USA. B. Canada.
C. Australia. D. England.
小题2:Which of the following shows the correct order of the events?
① Munro wrote the collection—Lives of Girls and Women.
② Munro won the Governor General’s Award for the first time.
③ Munro did part-time jobs as a waitress, a tobacco picker and a library clerk.
④ Munro came to China for a trip.
小题3: The best title of the passage should be “_________”.
| A．The first woman Nobel Prize winner—Alice Munro |
| B．Alice Munro—Master of the contemporary short story |
| C．Munro’s collection of interlinked stories |
| D．How can one receive the Nobel Prize in Literature |