The Lucknow Sentinel, 2015-04-01, Page 1616 Lucknow Sentinel • Wednesday, April 1, 2015
Nobel Laureate Alice Munro
welcomes Liberal candidate
Allan Thompson into her home
Submitted
The famously private Alice
Munro welcomed federal Lib-
eral candidate Allan Thompson
into her Clinton home on Sun-
day afternoon and spent close
to an hour around the kitchen
table chatting about politics,
writing and other topics.
Thompson, a former
Toronto Star journalist who is
the Liberal candidate in
Huron -Bruce, described the
remarkable meeting with the
Nobel Laureate in an entry in
his campaign blog,
ALLAN2015.com.
"I had a magical visit this
afternoon with Nobel laureate
Alice Munro at her home in
Clinton. She was elegant,
funny and most of all, warm
and welcoming," Thompson
wrote. "As someone who has
made his career as a writer, it is,
ironically, a bit hard for me to
put into words what it meant to
spend an hour or so with the
master of the short story and in
myview, the world's best living
writer. And to be honest, I'm
still a bit surprised that the
famously private Munro
agreed to meet me at all, so my
inclination is not to go into too
much detail about our
conversation"
Thompson did say that he
and the 83 -year-old Munro
discussed writing, journalism
today, her Nobel, the Rwanda
genocide, Canadian politics
and a number of other
things. Thompson also
stressed in his blog that while
he and Munro did talk about
politics and his bid to become
the next MP in Huron -Bruce,
out of respect for her much -
cherished privacy, he would
not publicize her political
views and did not ask her to
formally endorse his
candidacy.
Munro, who was born in
Wingham and spends most of
her time between Clinton and
a home in Victoria, was
awarded the Nobel Prize in Lit-
erature in 2013. She is widely
regarded as the master of the
contemporary short story and
most of her legendary fiction is
set in her native Huron County.
In 2009 she indicated that
she'd received treatment for
cancer and had also under-
gone coronary-artery bypass
surgery. She declined to attend
the ceremony in Oslo to
receive her Nobel, citing ill
health and announced that
year that she had retired from
writing. Her time in Clinton
has allowed her to maintain
her privacy, despite her inter-
national fame.
Thompson made a point of
asking Munro for her permis-
sion to post photographs and a
description of their meeting
online. "She joked that as long
as no one was putting her
name on the ballot, that would
it be fine with her," Thompson
said.
Submitted
Liberal candidate Allan Thompson enjoyed chatting about several topics during a visit with Nobel
Laureate short story author Alice Munroe in her Clinton home on March 23, 2015.
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