Gallant, Mavis (1922– )

Canadian short-story writer and novelist, based in Paris. A regular contributor to the New Yorker magazine, she has published novels and collections of short fiction, notably The Pegnitz Junction (1973), dealing with German life alienated from its immediate past after 1945, From the Fifteenth District (1979), set in various European countries, and Across the Bridge (1994).

Her work, which is distinguished by adroitly shifting points of view, perhaps influenced by cinema technique, often deals with the themes of cultural isolation and displacement. Other collections of her stories include The Other Paris (1956), My Heart is Broken (1964), The End of the World and Other Stories (1974), Overhead in a Balloon: Stories of Paris (1985), In Transit (1988), and Collected Stories of Mavis Gallant (1996). She is also the author of two novels, Green Water, Green Sky (1969) and A Fairly Good Time (1970), as well as a play, What is to be done? (1984), and a non-fiction work, Paris Journals: Selected Essays and Reviews (1986).