Friend of My Youth

It is a collection that attests, once again, to Ms Munro's complete fluency in the short-story form, her emergence as one of the most eloquent and gifted writers of contemporary fiction

New York Times

Munro is unfaltering at changes of mood, moments when sweetness tips over into mistrust, or mockery, or disgust

Independent

She is our Chekhov, and is going to outlast most of her contemporaries

Cynthia Ozick

The particular brilliance of Alice Munro is that in range and depth her short stories are almost novels

Daily Telegraph

Brilliant at evoking life's diversity and unpredictability...an unrivalled chronicler of human nature under a vast span of aspects, moods and pressures

Sunday Times

Read not more than one of her stories a day, and allow them to work their spell: they are made last

Observer

Alice Munro's stories, Friend of My Youth, are wonderful: intricate, deep, full of absorbing and funny detail, and opening into painful and tender memories with cunningly concealed skill

Independent on Sunday

One of the best short-story writers alive

The Times