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Meet the Author

Margaret Laurence

Canadian · 1926–1987 · Novelist

The novelist who gave small-town prairie Canada its own proud, unflinching literature.

1 StoryBites Edition
Start with A Bird in the House → Browse the editions

Why read Margaret Laurence?

Laurence writes about women wrestling with pride, faith, and independence in the fictional Manitoba town of Manawaka. Her characters are stubborn, flawed, and vividly alive, especially her fierce old narrator facing death. She helped Canadian fiction find its own voice and dignity.

A life in six dates

  1. 1926Born in Neepawa, Manitoba, Canada
  2. 1964Publishes The Stone Angel
  3. 1966Publishes A Jest of God
  4. 1974Publishes The Diviners
  5. 1987Dies in Lakefield, Ontario, Canada

Themes across the work

World literatureCanadian literature

The StoryBites Editions

Context that actually matters

The Manawaka cycleHer fictional prairie town anchors a linked body of powerful novels.
Canadian identityShe was central to a generation that built a distinct national literature.
Women's inner livesShe wrote female pride, doubt, and freedom with rare depth.