Alice Munro grew up in Wingham, Ontario, reading
Eudora Welty,
Carson McCullers, Katherine Anne Porter,
Flannery O'Connor and
James Agee. Then, she moved on to
John Updike,
John Cheever,
Joyce Carol Oates, Peter Taylor, William Trevor,
Edna O'Brien, Richard Ford and especially William Maxwell. Generally regarded to be one of the world's foremost writers of fiction, Alice Munro's stories involve all-knowing narrators who explain the complexities of life, love and relationship in small-town settings, usually Huron County, Ontario. With comparisons to the works of
William Faulkner and
Flannery O'Connor, her books have brought her international acclaim and a multitude of awards, including the 2009 Man Booker International Prize given to her in Dublin for "a body of work that has contributed to an achievement in fiction on the world stage."
