The Royal Canadian Mint’s unveiling of a commemorative silver coin Monday not only honoured Nobel-prize-winning writer Alice Munro, but helped the Victoria resident help other writers.
About the size of a loonie, the silver coin holds a face value of $5 but is really meant to be a keepsake, said Beverley Lepine, chief operating officer of the mint, at a ceremony in the Greater Victoria Public Library’s downtown main branch.
Munro, 82, has written more than a dozen books since 1968 and is often lauded as the master of the short story. She retired from writing last year.
“The powerful small-town stories of Alice Munro have touched the hearts of countless admirers of her craft in Canada and around the world,” Lepine said.
Lepine noted Munro is one of only 13 women to win the prestigious Nobel Prize in Literature, which she won last year, and the first Canadian woman to do so. “It is therefore a great pleasure for us to craft a heartfelt tribute in pure silver.”
In addition to the collector coin, the mint also donated $10,000 to a charity of Munro’s choice. She picked the Writers’ Trust of Canada, an organization which has supported Canadian authors — including Munro — with awards, grants and retreats since 1976.
“She’s a great literary icon paying it forward and we’re so grateful,” said Mary Osborne, executive director of the Trust, adding she was star-struck to meet the author.
The sentiment was echoed by Maureen Sawa, the Greater Victoria library system’s chief executive officer, who said many there would like to tell Munro how much her stories “have meant to us and how they have shown us it is OK to have unreasonable expectations — and how they have given so many of us the courage to run away and leave behind our lives as girls and take a chance on too much happiness as women.”
The commemorative coin, designed by Canadian artist Laurie McGaw, bears the Nobel laurel branch symbol and the image of a hand writing in a book — from which a female figure emerges.
The lives of women and girls is a central theme in Munro’s short stories. An inscription on the book was chosen by Munro and her family to best embody her and her work. It is written in both English and French and only legible with a magnifying glass.
After posing for photos with the coin design, Munro sat in a cosy chair and put on bold red-framed glasses to softly read a passage from The View from Castle Rock — a historical and autobiographical collection of short stories:
“And in one of these houses — I can’t remember whose — a magic doorstop, a big mother-of-pearl seashell that I recognized as a messenger from near and far, because I could hold it to my ear — when nobody was there to stop me — and discover the tremendous pounding of my own blood, and of the sea.”
The coin has a limited mintage of 7,500 and will be available April 1, including at Canada Post outlets for $69.95. This is the second time Canadian literature has been honoured with a special coin. Lucy Maud Montgomery and her book Anne of Green Gables have both been honoured with keepsake coins.
