The Zoomer List: Canada’s Top 45 Over 45: Alice Munro

Although she implied she would retire from writing after releasing The View From Castle Rock in 2006, she has continued to publish work. She surprised the CanLit establishment when she withdrew her latest collection, Too Much Happiness, from contention for the 2009 Giller Prize, hoping to leave the field to younger writers. In another, this could have come across as hubris, but with Munro it spoke to her graciousness: the matriarch stepping aside for the next generation. When, in 2009, she was awarded the Man Booker International Prize, it merely supported what most devotees knew anyway. Simply put, Munro is one of Canada’s and the world’s most potent and powerful storytellers.