Alice Munro, Lives of Girls and Women

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First published in 1971,

Lives of Girls and Women

was Alice Munro's second book and achieved a greater popular success in Canada than her first, the short fiction collection

Dance of the Happy Shades

. Sometimes called a novel but perhaps better read as a short-story cycle,

Lives of Girls and Women

won the Canadian Booksellers' Award and is probably Munro's most well-known text. Its refusal to sentimentalize rurality and childhood is notable, while its frank, nuanced exploration of a girl's life and the social limitations imposed on it have been of great interest to feminist critics. Although both earlier and later texts by Munro feature a first-person narration about a woman growing up in a small town,

Lives

remains her most sustained and most influential example of such an approach.

1987 words

Citation: McGill, Robert. "Lives of Girls and Women". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 June 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3893, accessed 19 March 2024.]

3893 Lives of Girls and Women 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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