My old friend Mavis died in Paris four years ago today. Her books, of course, live on. If anyone doesn’t know her work, please tell them to read HOME TRUTHS (which won the Governor-general’s Award in 1982) or the SELECTED STORIES. 1996,
But any of her books will show her genius, and will demonstrate why other writers admire her so much. From the U.S. Fran Lebowitz perhaps put it best : “The irrefutable master of the short story in English, Mavis Gallant has, among her colleagues, many admirers but no peer. She is the standout. She is the standard-bearer. She is the standard.”
Now Mavis is at the centre of a literary storm raging in American waters. To put it briefly (and I will write a fuller account) a younger American writer has been accused of stealing from one of Mavis’s classic stories, “The Ice wagon Going Down The Street”.
The New Yorker published that story in 1963. In January this year the same magazine (which had a huge role in shaping Mavis’s career) published a “new” story by Sadia Shepard entitled “Foreign-Returned”.
In a furious letter of protest to the magazine the well-known author Francine Prose claims that Shepard’s story about Pakistani immigrants in Connecticut is very closely modelled on Mavis’s story about Canadians in Geneva.
And the debate exploded, which I’ll describe later
There may be a welcome result from this unwelcome incident. It may remind many readers of the pleasures of reading Mavis.

A NEW SHOW is now in preparation, and I’ll be in Montreal in April (on the 5th) and in Quebec City on (May 8). My presentations are deliberately rare in the depths of winter, when travel is difficult. Many more events will be in spring and summer, and in Fall we’ll be in the Maritimes.

BUT THERE WILL BE A VERSION OF “ACROSS CANADA BY STORY” IN TORONTO THIS WEEK. The host is the East York Historical Society, at the S. Walter Stewart Library, at 170 Memorial Park Avenue (near Coxwell and Mortimer). The time is 2pm, on WEDNESDAY, 21 February. It would be nice to see you there.

My big project right now is my PODCAST, a decade-by-decade look at Canada’s Greatest Storytellers, from 1867 to today. Watch this space!