A small-town girl who dreams of greater things, trying to get away from a place that wants to hold her back. A series of stories exploring the pursuit of ambition, and the fear and shame of potential failure.

In this award-winning collection from the acclaimed Alice Munro, we follow Rose and her stepmother, Flo: residents of the poorer side of Hanratty. Rose is determined to get away, to pursue her ambitions, but as she moves through her life, from university in Vancouver to a crumbling marriage to a career as an actress and interviewer, she is constantly plagued by the question that has haunted her since the beginning: "Who do you think you are?"

Alice Munro grew up in Wingham, Ontario, and attended the University of Western Ontario. She has published ten previous books-Dance of the Happy Shades; Lives Of Girls And Women; Something I've Been Meaning To Tell You; Who Do You Think You Are?; The Moons Of Jupiter; The Progress Of Love; Friend of My Youth; Open Secrets; The Love of a Good Woman; and Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage-as well as Selected Stories, an anthology of stories culled from her dazzling body of work.

During her distinguished career, Munro has been the recipient of many awards and prizes, including the W.H. Smith Award in the United Kingdom and, in the United States, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, the Lannan Literary Award, and the Rea Award for the Short Story.

In Canada, her prize-winning record is so extraordinary-three Governor General's Awards, two Giller Prizes (one of which was for Runaway), the Trillium Book Award, the Jubilee Prize, and the Libris Award, among many others-that it has been ironically suggested that as such a perennial winner, she no longer qualifies for new prizes. Abroad, acclaim continues to pour in. Both Runaway and Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best Book Award, Caribbean and Canada region, and were chosen as one of the Books of the Year by The New York Times.

Alice Munro's stories appear regularly in The New Yorker, as well as in The Atlantic Monthly, Saturday Night, and The Paris Review. She and her husband divide their time between Clinton (in “Alice Munro country”), Ontario, and Comox, British Columbia.

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Alice Munro's profile page

“The stories are absolutely wonderful . . . every word she writes is interesting.”
―Alice Adams

“She has a touch of genius.”
―Mail on Sunday

“The best stories of the year.”
―The Nation

“A work of great brilliance and depth―Munro’s power of analysis, of sensations and thoughts, is almost Proustian in its sureness.”
―New Statesman

“Alice Munro captures a kaleidoscope of lights and depths―she manages to reproduce the vibrant practice of life while scrutinizing the workings of her own narrative art―an exhilarating collection.”
―The New York Times

“Alice Munro's stories are universally admired―if one defines the ‘universe’ as that part of the world's population that reads good books.” ―Wayne Johnston

“In Alice Munro’s hands, the smallest moments contain the central truths of a lifetime.” ―Maclean's