Margaret Laurence Writes Africa and Canada

Margaret Laurence Writes Africa and Canada is the first book to examine how Laurence addresses decolonization and nation building in 1950s Somalia and Ghana, and 1960s and 1970s English Canada.

Focusing on Laurence’s published works as well as her unpublished letters not yet discussed by critics, the book articulates how Laurence and her characters are poised between African colonies of occupation during decolonization and the settler-colony of English Canada during the implementation of Canadian multiculturalism. Laurence’s Canadian characters are often divided subjects who are not quite members of their ancestral “imperial” cultures, yet also not truly “native” to their nation. Margaret Laurence Writes Africa and Canada shows how Laurence and her characters negotiate complex tensions between “self” and “nation,” and argues that Laurence’s African and Canadian writing demonstrates a divided Canadian subject who holds significant implications for both the individual and the country of Canada.

Bringing together Laurence’s writing about Africa and Canada, Davis offers a unique contribution to the study of Canadian literature. The book is an original interpretation of Laurence’s work and reveals how she displaces the simple notion that Canada is a sum total of different cultures and conceives Canada as a mosaic that is in flux and constituted through continually changing social relations.

Part One: Writing About Africa

Chapter One: Conflicts of Culture in The Prophet’s Camel Bell and This Side Jordan

Laura K. Davis

Examines how Laurence’s ambivalent position as a Canadian woman in Africa manifests in her memoir about Africa, The Prophet’s Camel Bell, and her only novel about Africa, This Side Jordan. It discusses how Laurence’s vision and voice in Africa were influenced by both Western colonial tropes of Africa, and Western Canadian feminist history.Chapter 2 Toward Cross-Cultural Understanding: Margaret Laurence’s Africa in The Tomorrow-Tamer and Other Stories

Laura K. Davis

Examines Margaret Laurence’s collection of short stories about Africa entitled The Tomorrow-Tamer and Other Stories, and it shows how Laurence worked toward cross-cultural understanding during a time of decolonization and increasing global development.Part Two: Writing About Canada

Chapter Three: Community and the Canadian Nation in The Stone Angel and A Bird in the House

Laura K. Davis

Argues that the central protagonists of two of Laurence’s Canadian novels, The Stone Angel and A Bird in the House, confront the history of their settler-invader ancestors. They feel conflicted between the culture of their ancestors and the emerging multicultural nation in which they reside, and they struggle to create their voices and identities.Chapter Four: Narrating Nation in The Diviners

Laura K. Davis

Contextualizes Laurence’s final novel, The Diviners, within Canadian politics contemporary to it, particularly English-Canada’s ongoing disassociation from British cultural values. More than any other Laurence text, this chapter argues, The Diviners interrogates English-Canada’s national imaginary, reconstructing it as unified through fragmentation and diversity.Conclusion: Essays, Letters, and Politics

Laura K. Davis

Discusses Laurence’s correspondence, arguing that Laurence’s personal and political writing are an extension of her literary career and her influential vision of Canada. Laurence persists in creating a new Canada and does not cease to work towards cross-cultural understanding and multiculturalism.