Fresh Air Archive: Carol Shields

Because Audible was not granted digital audio rights to today's issue of Fresh Air, we have selected a great interview with the late writer Carol Shields from the Fresh Air archive. In this interview, Carol Shields discusses her life, her work, and her diagnosis of stage 4 breast cancer. She won a Pulitzer Prize for her best-selling novel The Stone Diaries. Her books are often about middle class people leading quiet lives. Her other novels include Larry's Party which won Britian's Orange Prize, The Republic of Love, and Swann: A Mystery. She also wrote a biography of Jane Austen as well as plays, poetry and story collections. In 1998 Shields was diagnosed with breast cancer. She died on July 16, 2003. Her last novel, Unless was written after her diagnosis. (Original Broadcast Date: July 18, 2003)