Mavis Gallant's only play is a comedy that opens in 1942, in the heat of the battle against Fascism, when it was possible for Canadians to cheer for both Stalin and the Royal Family.

Mavis Gallant (1922-2014) is one of the great prose writers of the twentieth century, publishing well over a hundred short stories in The New Yorker along with many collections of short fiction, two novels, essays, and the play What Is To Be Done? Her many national and international honours include the Governor General's Award for Fiction, the PEN Nabokov Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, and the Prix David. She was born in Montreal, moved to Ontario and later to New York City, returning at the age of eighteen to Montreal, where she worked briefly for the National Film Board and as a journalist for The Standard newspaper. In 1950 she moved to Europe and spent most of her life in Paris.