SOURCE: Gallant, Mavis, and Samway, Patrick H. “An Interview with Mavis Gallant.” America 156, no. 23 (13 June 1987): 485-87.

In the following interview, Gallant discusses her lifelong love of reading, her reaction to the French character, and the genesis of several of the stories in Overhead in a Balloon.

Born in Montreal, Mavis Gallant left Canada in 1950 to live in Paris. Her books of fiction include The Other Paris, From the Fifteenth District, and The Pegnitz Junction. In 1981, she received the Order of Canada for her contributions to Canadian letters and the Governor General's Award for Home Truths.

Eleven of the 12 stories in her latest book, Overhead in a Balloon were published originally in The New Yorker, where her stories have appeared steadily for over 30 years. Four stories in this collection, “A Recollection,” “Rue de Lille,” “The Colonel's Child” and “Lena,” form an intricate composite sketch of Edouard, a Frenchman looking...