“Writing at the height of her powers, Alice Munro continues to define the short story for an international audience. Hers is an art visible only in its effects, her prose never postures, her characters never speak for anyone but themselves. In the eight stories that make up Runaway, Munro takes us deep into the lives of individuals whose experiences become part of our own through the sheer force of her empathy; as readers, our knowledge that these people do not exist leaves us awestruck. Each story is a model of the form, but collected they become a work of startling vision, a wise, compassionate yet unsentimental whole much greater than its parts.” — 2004 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize Jury (Zsuzsi Gartner, Sylvia Fraser, and Michael Redhill)