Who Do You Think You Are? is a book of short stories by Alice Munro, recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature, published by Macmillan of Canada in 1978. It won Munro her second Governor General's Award for Fiction in English, and short-listed for the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1980 under its international title, The Beggar Maid (subtitled Stories of Flo and Rose).
The book has received significant critical attention. It has been described as an eminent example of the integrated short fiction cycle, with some early critics going so far as to suggest that the stories might constitute a novel. Others have argued that the tension between the larger scale structure of the book and the individual nature of the stories is essential to Munro's sophisticated literary fiction.
Stories
- "Royal Beatings"
- "Privilege"
- "Half a Grapefruit"
- "Wild Swans"
- "The Beggar Maid"
- "Mischief"
- "Providence"
- "Simon's Luck"
- "Spelling"
- "Who Do You Think You Are?"
Summary
As suggested by the title, the theme of identity is central to the collection. It could be described in relation to the tradition of Bildungsroman, but