|
Tirolese Family
Photo
Gallery
Newsletters
Book Reviews
Film Reviews
Links
Funny Ha Ha
Alexander
Ana
Rubber-Man
Dirty Bird
Search the Site
Please help support our site by using the above link to go to
Amazon.ca
| |
About the Author:
Margaret Laurence was born in Neepawa,
Manitoba, in 1926. Upon graduation from Winnipeg’s United College in 1947, she
took a job as a reporter for the Winnipeg Citizen.
From 1950 until 1957 Laurence lived in Africa, the first two years in Somalia,
the next five in Ghana, where her husband, a civil engineer, was working. She
translated Somali poetry and prose during this time, and began her career as a
fiction writer with stories set in Africa.
When Laurence returned to Canada in 1957, she settled in Vancouver, where she
devoted herself to fiction with a Ghanaian setting: in her first novel, This
Side Jordan, and in her first collection of short fiction, The
Tomorrow-Tamer. Her two years in Somalia were the subject of her memoir,
The Prophet’s Camel Bell.
Separating from her husband in 1962, Laurence moved to England, which became her
home for a decade, the time she devoted to the creation of five books about the
fictional town of Manawaka, patterned after her birthplace, and its people:
The Stone Angel, A Jest of God, The Fire-Dwellers, A Bird
in the House, and The Diviners.
Laurence settled in Lakefield, Ontario, in 1974. She complemented her fiction
with essays, book reviews, and four children’s books. Her many honours include
two Governor General’s Awards for Fiction and more than a dozen honorary
degrees.
Margaret Laurence died in Lakefield, Ontario, in 1987.
Essays:
 | Long Drums and Cannons: Nigerian Dramatists and Novelists 1952-1966
(1968) |
| Heart of a Stranger (1976) |
|
|
