Canadian literary giant Alice Munro has died at the age of 92. While she was known for writing about her home province of Ontario, Victorians are remembering the role this city played in her career.
Munro was the first lifelong Canadian to win the Nobel literary prize in 2013 and at the time C-FAX 1070 spoke to her former husband Jim Munro about her Victoria past. The couple opened Munro's Books together, which remains a fixture of downtown Victoria to this day.
"We started Munro's Books in 1963. Alice and I moved from Vancouver over the Victoria. For the first few years she helped out in the bookstore and I remember one day she was saying 'I can write better books than these, so I'm going to stay home and write," Jim Munro told C-FAX 1070's Al Ferraby in 2013. Jim died in 2016.
The Greater Victoria Public Library has published a suggested reading list on its website as a way of celebrating her life and work.
Collections and technical services coordinator Rachel Rogers says the library also played a small role in Munro's story, "in 2014 they put out a commemorative coin after she won the Nobel Prize. Because she was living in Victoria at the time the unveiling of the coin took place at the Greater Victoria Public Library."
Munro died at her home in Port Hope, Ontario