Alice Munro, the Canadian writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013, died on May 13 this year at the age of 92. Two months after her death, Munro’s daughter, Andrea Skinner, disclosed in an essay in Toronto Star that her stepfather had sexually abused her for years—the first time wh𝓡en she was nine years old.
Skinner told her mother the truth when she was an adult, but Munro did not react with “concern ♈or support”, but “✱as if she had learned of an infidelity”. Munro also continued to stay with her husband till his death. This revelation has sparked a global controversy on Munro’s complicity in her daughter’s abuse.
The literary world is now debat🐬ing the impacts of a patriarchal system, the painful culture of silence in our society and Munro’s legacy.
In the latest issue, Outlook traces the ongoing debate of whether a🐽rt can really be separated from the artist.
