Too Much Happiness Part 26

Fufu practiced medicine in the Soviet Union, dying there in the mid-fifties of the twentieth century. She had no interest in mathematics, so she said.

Sophia's name has been given to a crater on the moon.

Acknowledgments.

I discovered Sophia Kovalevsky ("Too Much Happiness") while searching for something else in the Britannica Britannica one day. The combination of novelist and mathematician immediately caught my interest, and I began to read everything about her I could find. One book enthralled me beyond all others, and so I must record my indebtedness, my immense grat.i.tude, to the author of one day. The combination of novelist and mathematician immediately caught my interest, and I began to read everything about her I could find. One book enthralled me beyond all others, and so I must record my indebtedness, my immense grat.i.tude, to the author of Little Sparrow: A Portrait of Sophia Kovalevsky Little Sparrow: A Portrait of Sophia Kovalevsky (Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio, 1983), Don H. Kennedy, and his wife, Nina, a collateral descendent of Sophia's, who provided quant.i.ties of texts translated from the Russian, including portions of Sophia's diaries, letters and numerous other writings. (Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio, 1983), Don H. Kennedy, and his wife, Nina, a collateral descendent of Sophia's, who provided quant.i.ties of texts translated from the Russian, including portions of Sophia's diaries, letters and numerous other writings.

I have limited my story to the days leading up to Sophia's death, with flashbacks to her earlier life. But I do urge anybody interested to read the Kennedys' book, which presents such historical and mathematical riches.

June 2009 Alice Munro Clinton, Ontario Canada

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alice Munro grew up in Wingham, Ontario, and attended the University of Western Ontario. She has published eleven previous collections of stories-Dance of the Happy Shades; Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You; The Beggar Maid; The Moons of Jupiter; The Progress of Love; Friend of My Youth; Open Secrets; The Love of a Good Woman; Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage; Runaway; and and The View from Castle Rock The View from Castle Rock-as well as a novel, Lives of Girls and Women Lives of Girls and Women, and a Selected Stories Selected Stories. During her distinguished career she has been the recipient of many awards and prizes, including three of Canada's Governor General's Literary Awards and two of its Giller Prizes, the Rea Award for the Short Story, the Lannan Literary Award, England's W. H. Smith Book Award, and the United States' National Book Critics Circle Award. Her stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, and other publications, and her collections have been translated into thirteen languages. She lives in Clinton, Ontario, near Lake Huron.

ALSO BY ALICE MUNRO

The View from Castle Rock

Runaway

Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage

The Love of a Good Woman

Selected Stories

Open Secrets

Friend of My Youth

The Progress of Love

The Moons of Jupiter

The Beggar Maid

Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You

Lives of Girls and Women

Dance of the Happy Shades