Author(s): Carol Shields

Fiction

The Republic of Love is a hymn to the pleasures and pains, the raptures even of an unspectacular life. Fay discovers that happiness is "a kind of by-product of existence, and not an end in itself". Carol Shields was born and raised in Chicago and has lived in Canada since 1957. She studied at Hanover College and the University of Ottawa. Author of six novels, including The Republic of Love, which was shortlisted for the 1992 Guardian Fiction Prize, and The Stone Diaries, which was shortlisted for the 1993 Booker Prize, Carol Shields has also written three volumes of poetry and numerous short stories. She now lives in Winnipeg and spends each summer in France.

• Visit Carol Shields at www.4thestate.com