Late newcomer

Mavis Gallant was born in Canada and lived in France, where she died in 2014 at the age of 91. Throughout her life, she dedicated herself almost exclusively to a single genre, the short story, with the vast majority of her work first appearing in The New Yorker. In her concise, sharp prose, Gallant explores the theme of displacement – both inner and outer. Having spent most of her life away from her homeland, she possesses a deep, human understanding of the uprooted and lonely characters in her stories. At the same time, she shatters the conventions and established forms of the genre with a sense of brevity and sharp irony.

The significance of Mavis Gallant's masterly short stories is compared to the work of Chekhov or Henry James, and she deeply influenced an entire generation of writers. Alongside Alice Munro, she is ranked among the most important Canadian writers of the 20th century. The selection, titled The Late Homecomer, contains thirteen novellas and short stories translated by Martin Pokorný, presenting this major author to Czech readers for the very first time.