Tag Archives: ontario

Canadian writer Alice Munro wins Nobel for literature

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2013 was awarded today (Oct. 10) to the Canadian author Alice Munro, called a “master of the contemporary short story.”

Munro grew up in Ontario, where her mother was a teacher and her father was a fox farmer. She studied journalism and English at the University of Western Ontario. She married in 1951 and settled with her husband in Victoria, British Columbia, where they opened a bookstore.

Munro began writing stories in her teens and published her first book-length work in 1968.

She is primarily known for her short stories, including some LGBT-themed pieces, and has published many collections over the years. Her works include “Who Do You Think You Are?” (1978), “The Moons of Jupiter” (1982), “Runaway” (2004), “The View from Castle Rock” (2006) and “Too Much Happiness” (2009). The collection “Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage” (2001) became the basis of the film “Away from Her” from 2006, directed by Sarah Polley. Her most recent collection is “Dear Life” (2012).

Munro, according to the biography from the Nobel prize committee, is “acclaimed for her finely tuned storytelling, which is characterized by clarity and psychological realism. Some critics consider her a Canadian Chekhov. Her stories are often set in small town environments, where the struggle for a socially acceptable existence often results in strained relationships and moral conflicts – problems that stem from generational differences and colliding life ambitions. Her texts often feature depictions of everyday but decisive events, epiphanies of a kind, that illuminate the surrounding story and let existential questions appear in a flash of lightning.”

Alice Munro currently resides in Clinton, near her childhood home in southwestern Ontario.

On the Web…

A link to an Alice Munro story in The New Yorker, 

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2011/06/27/110627fi_fiction_munro 

Ontario gets first female and openly gay premier

Canada’s most populous province is getting its first female premier and the country’s first openly gay premier after the provincial Liberals chose a new leader.

Former education minister Kathleen Wynne won the party’s leadership race Saturday.

Wynne is making history as Canada’s first openly gay premier, a subject she confronted head-on in a speech over the weekend.

Wynne says Ontario is ready for a lesbian as premier and says she does not believe Ontarians hold prejudice in their hearts.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper congratulated Wynne, and thanked outgoing Premier Dalton McGuinty who is stepping down after nine years in office.

He won a third term last year, but his party was reduced to a minority of the seats in the legislature and must rely on the opposition to pass legislation.

Porn actor wanted for killing man, mailing body parts

A porn actor is wanted in a gruesome case of dismembered body parts that were mailed to different places including the headquarters of the Conservative Party of Canada, police said.

Luka Rocco Magnotta, 29, is wanted for homicide, Montreal police said at a news conference on May 30.

According to an official close to the investigation, Magnotta worked as a porn actor and there is video of the crime. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly about those details.

Magnotta, believed to originally be from Toronto, was renting an apartment in a working-class Montreal neighborhood. It was behind that building that police found a man’s torso in a suitcase in a heap of garbage on May 29, police said. That same day, a foot was found in a package mailed to the Conservative party headquarters in Ottawa, and a hand found at postal warehouse in the Canadian capital. The package with the hand was addressed to the Liberal Party of Canada. Early testing shows the three body parts come from the same man, police said.

Police in masks combed through the blood-soaked Montreal studio apartment. A blood stained mattress remained there after they left.

“For most of the officers that were there all night long this is the kind of crime scene they’ve never seen in their career,” Montreal Police Cmdr. Ian Lafreniere said.

Lafreniere said they are investigating the possibility that other body parts might have been mailed. He said the suspect and the victim knew each other. He said it isn’t linked to organized crime.

The packages with the foot and the hand had been mailed to Ottawa from Montreal. It wasn’t clear why.

“As a father, I would have trouble sleeping at night knowing that the suspect was in my neighborhood,” Lafreniere said.

Police said Magnotta is also known by the names Eric Clinton Newman and Vladimir Romanov. They described him as white, 5 feet 8 inches tall (1.78 meters) with blue eyes and black hair.

His Internet profile indicates he is a bisexual porn actor and model.

Police discovered the severed foot after Jenni Bryne, a top political adviser to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, opened a bloodstained box at Conservative party headquarters on May 29.

When Bryne opened the box, a foul odor overcame the office.

“It was such a horrible odor. I’m sure many of us will not forget it,” Conservative Party spokesman Fred DeLorey said.

Police said the package was addressed to the Conservative Party of Canada and not to a specific person.

Eric Schorer, the manager of the building where the suspect lived, said Magnotta had been living there for about four months but hadn’t been seen around in a while. He said there were never any complaints about noise in the unit, and that Magnotta passed a credit test to rent there.

“He seemed like a nice guy,” Schorer said.

Richard Payette, who lived across the hall from Magnotta, said the door of Apartment 208 was left open for part of the day on May 30. Payette said there was an overwhelming smell drifting out into the hallway, like bad meat.

An online video showing a man that looks like Magnotta shows him committing violent acts against kittens. The video contains at least one photo made available by Montreal police that identified the man as Magnotta. For nearly two years, the name has been notorious among animal-rights activists looking for a man who tortured and killed cats and posted videos of it online.

“It’s very upsetting,” Opposition New Democrat member Yvon Godin said. “It could be just one crazy person that did it, but at the same time we have lots of people unhappy in our country, the way the country is going.”

Opposition Liberal member Justin Trudeau called the packages horrific.

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