SOURCE: Finkle, David. “Mavis Gallant: An Oeuvre Extraordinaire.” Publishers Weekly 243, no. 41 (7 October 1996): 46-7.

In the following essay, Finkle provides an overview of Gallant's life and career through the publication of The Collected Stories of Mavis Gallant.

Not every expatriate writer in France likes to sit at La Coupole, the clean, well-lighted Boulevard Montparnasse brasserie. Some like to while away their off-writing hours across the wide thoroughfare at the smaller, darker Cafe Select. Mavis Gallant, a Montrealer who's lived permanently in Paris since 1960, is one of them. That's where she decides she'll be most comfortable talking about her fiction and particularly about The Collected Stories that she and Random House have put together.

A shortish woman, all rounded lines, with hair pushed back in two cropped russet wings on either side of her head, she's waiting at a small outside table. She has an umbrella, equipment anyone accustomed to...