Short story great Alice Munro says she is ‘probably’ done writing

NEW YORK, N.Y. – Less than a year after Philip Roth announced he had stopped writing books, another literary great may be retiring: Alice Munro.

The 81-year-old Canadian author, widely regarded as one of the world’s greatest short story writers, told Canada’s National Post during a recent interview that she was “probably not going to write anymore.”

Fiction editor Deborah Treisman of The New Yorker, where Munro has often been published, told The Associated Press on Thursday that she has not received any new material from Munro since last year.

Munro, whose books include “Dear Life” and “Friend of My Youth,” has said before that she was quitting, only to resume writing. During a brief interview posted last fall on www.newyorker.com , she acknowledged her previous statements, but said, “This time, I think it’s for real.”