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Focusing on Laurence's published works as well as her unpublished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.
