Alice Munro is op 92-jarige leeftijd overleden. De Canadese auteur stierf gisteren in een verzorgingstehuis te Ontario. Ze leed de laatste jaren aan dementie. Munro was een van de weinige schrijvers die louter korte verhalen schreef. Het leverde haar in 2009 de Man International Booker Prize op en in 2013 de Nobelprijs voor de Literatuur. Op de site van Nobelprijs staat te lezen:

Throughout her life and career, Alice Munro has meditated the life she has lived herself, that she has seen others live, the lives she has known and imagined. Through their complexity, through their clarity, and through their precision, the stories Munro has published capture the very feelings of what it is like to live, to be alive. The feeling of just being a human being. From first to last – whichever one the last may be – Munro’s stories reveal her as a consummate artist who is without question among the most accomplished masters of the short story. And of prose fiction. In her hands, the short story is complete, whole. Her work is a triumph. As Munro once said of the writing of another, “so this is how it should be done.”

Op Tzum is opmerkelijk genoeg geen enkel boek van haar besproken, wat misschien wel laat zien dat de aandacht spaarzaam is voor het korte verhaal.