In Memoriam – Mavis Gallant 1922-2014

Canada has lost one our literary treasures with the passing of Mavis Gallant.

A Companion to the Order of Canada, Mavis Gallant was an accomplished journalist, a two time novelist and successful playwright.

But without doubt, she is best known for her amazing short stories. She has had a dozen collection of stories published around the world. Incredibly, she has had 116 stories published in the New Yorker. 

Although an ex-patriot for most of her adult life, her impact on Canadian literature is immense, as evident by the who’s who of Canadian literati who cite her as a major influence.

She was our great writer. My hero.” –  Michael Ondaatje

“She was also a woman ahead of her time, blazing a trail of independence that took courage and determination that inspired legions of other authors who count her influence as seminal to their own careers.” – Douglas Pepper

“…one who honours in every sentence she writes the deepest, most time-honoured principles of composition: honesty, clarity, and concision.” – Russell Banks

“…she has written the truest words about writing that I’ve ever encountered. ‘Like every other form of art literature is no more and nothing less than a matter of life and death. The only question worth asking about a story is, ‘Is it dead or alive?’ Her work, needless to say, is ferociously alive.”- Catherine Bush

Among her most popular collections at our libraries are:

From the Fifteenth District: a novella and eight short stories (M), Paris Stories (M); and The Collected Stories of Mavis Gallant (M).