By CHARLES McGRATH - The New York Times - Published: July 1, 2013
CLINTON, Ontario — Accepting a literary prize in Toronto last month, Alice Munro, the acclaimed short-story writer — “our Chekhov,” as Cynthia Ozick has called her — winner of the Man Booker International Prize and just about every important North American literary award for which she is eligible, told a newspaper interviewer, “I’m probably not going to write anymore.”
Alice Munro near her bungalow in Clinton, Ontario, a small town like those in her renowned works of short fiction. - Ian Willms for The New York Times
Ms. Munro, who will turn 82 next week, has talked this way before. In 2006 she told a writer from The Toronto Globe and Mail, “I don’t know if I have the energy to do this anymore.” She then went on to publish yet another story collection, her 14th, called “Dear Life.” It came out last fall, and reviewers, as usual, remarked on her insightful handling of themes like the bleakness of small-town life; the eruptive, transforming power of sex; and the trouble women have making their way in a world run by men.
But recently, sitting on the back porch of her home on the edge of town here, Ms. Munro insisted that this time she really means to retire. She was wearing pants, a loose cotton top and sensible sandals that revealed toenails painted electric blue, and she seemed cheerful and relaxed. There will be no more books after “Dear Life,” she said, and the four autobiographical stories that conclude the book — retellings, in a way, of ones with which she began her career — will be her last. “Put your money on it,” she said.
For great writers, retirement is a fairly recent career option. There have always been writers, like Thomas Hardy and Saul Bellow, who kept at it until the very end, but there are many more, like Proust, Dickens and Balzac, who died prematurely, worn out by writing itself. Margaret Drabble may have started a trend when, in 2009, at the age of 69, she announced that she was calling it quits. Ms. Munro said she was encouraged by the example of Philip Roth, who declared that he was done last fall, as he was getting ready to turn 80. “I put great faith in Philip Roth,” she said, adding, “He seems so happy now.”
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