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Alice Munro © Derek Shapton |
Alice Munro (10 July 1931, Wingham, Canada) Alice was born in Wingham, Ontario in Canada. Her father was a fox and mink farmer and her mother was a teacher. Alice began writing as a teenager. She also studied at the University of Western Ontario and worked as a library clerk. After marrying she moved with her husband to Dundarave, West Vancouver, and moved again in 1963 to Victoria, where the pair opened a bookstore. Since the late 1960s, Alice Munro has dedicated herself to writing. She is married with two daughters from her first marriage.
Alice Munro has dedicated her literary career almost exclusively to the short story genre. She grew up in a small Canadian town; the kind of environment that often provides the backdrops for her stories. These often accommodate the entire epic complexity of the novel in just a few short pages. The underlying themes of her work are often relationship problems and moral conflicts. The relationship between memory and reality is another recurring theme she uses to create tension. With subtle means, she is able to demonstrate the impact that seemingly trivial events can have on a person's life.
https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2013/munro-facts.html
‘‘Boys and Girls’’ was first published in 1968 in The Montrealer, before it was collected with fourteen
other stories and published in Alice Munro’s first edition of short stories, Dance of the Happy Shades
(1968). The story, narrated by a young girl, details the time in her life when she leaves childhood and
its freedoms behind and realizes that to be a ‘‘girl’’ is to be, eventually, a woman. The child begins to
understand that being socially typed entails a host of serious implications. Thus becoming a ‘‘girl’’ on
the way to womanhood is a time fraught with difficulties for the young protagonist because she senses
that women are considered the social inferiors of men. Initially, she tries to prevent this from occurring
by resisting her parents’ and grandparents’ attempts to train her in the likes, habits, behaviour, and
work of women.
http://www.giuliotortello.it/shortstories/boys_and_girls.pdf
http://www.slideshare.net/emmawxyn/boys-and-girls-3142564
http://www.signature-reads.com/2013/08/a-definitive-biography-to-honor-alice-munros-retirement/
