Lannan Literary Awards
3 appearances
-
Edition 93 (2004, held 2 times in year) Fellowship
-
Edition 160 (2004, held 6 times in year) Fellowship
Mavis Gallant
マヴィス・ギャラント
Mavisu Gyaranto
Profile
- Gender
- Female
- Born
- 1922-08-11 （Montreal, Quebec, Canada）
- Died
- 2014-02-18 （Paris, France） age 91
- Nationality
- Canada
- Languages
- English
- Residence History
- Montreal, Canada (birth/early life) → New York area, United States (c.1935–1940) → Spain (short residence) → Paris, France (long-term residence)
Career
- Occupations
- short story writer, novelist, playwright, essayist, journalist
- Active Years
- 1944-2014
- Affiliations
- University of Toronto (Writer-in-Residence, 1983–84), American Academy of Arts and Letters (Foreign Honorary Member, 1989)
- Memberships
- American Academy of Arts and Letters (Foreign Honorary Member)
- Influenced By
- Henry James (often compared to), Anton Chekhov (often compared to)
Awards
| Year | Award | Work | Category | Organization | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 | Order of Canada | — | — | Government of Canada | Officer（1981） |
| 1993 | Order of Canada | — | — | Government of Canada | Companion（1993、昇進） |
| 1981 | Governor General's Award for English-language fiction | Home Truths: Selected Canadian Stories | — | Governor General's Awards | 受賞 |
| 2006 | Prix Athanase‑David | — | — | Government of Quebec | 受賞 |
| 2000 | Matt Cohen Prize | — | — | Canadian literary organization | 受賞 |
| 2002 | Rea Award for the Short Story | — | — | Rea Award committee | 受賞 |
| 2004 | Lannan Literary Fellowship | — | — | Lannan Foundation | 受賞 |
| 2004 | PEN/Nabokov Award | — | — | PEN America | 受賞 |
| 1991 | Honorary LL.D. | — | — | Queen's University | 授与 |
Order of Canada
1981
Organization:
Government of Canada
Result:
Officer（1981）
Order of Canada
1993
Organization:
Government of Canada
Result:
Companion（1993、昇進）
Governor General's Award for English-language fiction
1981
Work:
Home Truths: Selected Canadian Stories
Organization:
Governor General's Awards
Result:
受賞
Prix Athanase‑David
2006
Organization:
Government of Quebec
Result:
受賞
Matt Cohen Prize
2000
Organization:
Canadian literary organization
Result:
受賞
Rea Award for the Short Story
2002
Organization:
Rea Award committee
Result:
受賞
Lannan Literary Fellowship
2004
Organization:
Lannan Foundation
Result:
受賞
PEN/Nabokov Award
2004
Organization:
PEN America
Result:
受賞
Honorary LL.D.
1991
Organization:
Queen's University
Result:
授与
Awards & Nominations
Prix Athanase-David
1 appearances
-
Edition 38 (2006) Winner
Works
Major Works
From the Fifteenth District
1979 Short story collection (novella and short stories)A collection of a novella and short stories set largely in Paris and Europe, exploring exile, alienation and the unsettling aspects of everyday life.
exilealienationimmigration / foreignness
The Pegnitz Junction
1973 Novella and short storiesA collection containing a novella and short stories that examine the small possibilities in people that can lead to fascist tendencies, with strong social and psychological insight.
fascismindividual psychologyhistorical influence
Home Truths: Selected Canadian Stories
1981 Short story collection (selected)A selected collection emphasizing Canadian themes and settings; it helped raise her profile in Canada and won the Governor General's Award.
Canadian memoryidentityfamily relationships
The Other Paris
1956 Short story collectionAn early collection of Paris-set stories depicting nuances of life and relationships in a foreign city; one of her first notable works.
life in Parisforeignnesshuman relationships
Bibliography
- The Other Paris (1956)
- My Heart Is Broken (1964)
- The Pegnitz Junction (1973)
- The End of the World and Other Stories (1974)
- From the Fifteenth District (1979)
- Home Truths: Selected Canadian Stories (1981)
- Overhead in a Balloon: Stories of Paris (1985)
- In Transit (1988)
- Across the Bridge (1993)
- Collected/Selected Stories (1996–2003, various collections)
- Going Ashore: Stories (2009)
- The Cost of Living: Early and Uncollected Stories (2009)
- The Uncollected Stories of Mavis Gallant (2024)
Adaptations
- The French Dispatch (Wes Anderson film, 2021 — one story segment inspired by Gallant)
Style & Themes
- Literary Style
- concise, observant proseironic and cool-eyed narrationcondensed, tightly-wrought short-story technique
- Recurring Motifs
- exile / foreignnessisolation / alienationfragile marriages and relationshipsmemory and the pastthe small possibilities of fascism
Legacy
Mavis Gallant is regarded as one of the leading short-story writers of the late 20th century. An expatriate Canadian living in Paris, she earned acclaim for her clear-eyed, insightful short fiction addressing exile, alienation and moral choice, influencing critics and writers alike.
Academic Societies
- American Academy of Arts and Letters (honorary)
- Quebec Writers' Federation (award named in her honour)
In Popular Culture
- Wes Anderson's film The French Dispatch (2021) drew on one of Gallant's New Yorker stories as partial inspiration
- Author Sadia Shepard faced accusations of copying Gallant's story in a 2018 controversy
Quotes
-
Only personal independence matters.
Source: Boris Pasternak (epigraph quoted in the preface to Home Truths) (1981) -
I had a mother who should not have had children, and it's as simple as that.
Source: The New York Times (interview) (2014)
Trivia
- Published 116 stories in The New Yorker over her career.
- First anglophone writer to receive Quebec's Prix Athanase‑David (2006).
- Her early literary agent Jacques Chambrun embezzled royalties; she discovered her publication in The New Yorker by seeing her name in a library copy.
- Her private journals were announced for publication but as of 2023 had not appeared in full; excerpts have been published in The New Yorker.