Mavis Gallant dead: Canadian short story writer dies aged 91, publisher confirms

Canadian short story writer Mavis Gallant has died, her publisher has confirmed.

The legendary author passed away in Paris, where she has lived since her 20s.

Gallant is widely regarded by her peers as a master of the form, and more than 100 of her stories have been published in The New Yorker, The Other Paris, Across the Bridge and In Transit since 1951.

She has also written 17 books, often telling tales of loss and alienation, including the novels Green Water, Green Sky and A Fairly Good Time, as well as the play What is to be Done?.

Gallant received several high-profile honours in her home country of Canada despite living abroad, including a Companion of the Order of Canada and a Governor General’s Literary Award for her collection of stories, Home Truths: Selected Canadian Stories.

Her writing also earned her the Matt Cohen Prize, the Rea Award for the Short Story, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a PEN/Nabokov Award, Prix Athanase-David literary award from the government of Quebec, and a spot as a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Her work has been compared to Chekhov, Henry James and George Eliot in the past.

Author of story collection Unaccustomed Earth Jhumpa Lahiri described Gallant as biggest influence on her own work.