From Our Editors
Like her stern pioneer ancestors, Hagar Shipley leads a life of
uncompromising pride. Margaret Laurence etches
vivid descriptions of Hagar through childhood, a stormy marriage,
loss of the son she loved and life with the one she didn't. With
her life nearly behind her, Hagar makes a bold, last step towards
freedom, independence and acceptance. The Stone
Angel is part of Laurence's Manawaka
cycle.
From the Publisher
In her best-loved novel, The Stone Angel, Margaret
Laurence introduces Hagar Shipley, one of the most memorable
characters in Canadian fiction. Stubborn, querulous, self-reliant -
and, at ninety, with her life nearly behind her - Hagar Shipley
makes a bold last step towards freedom and independence.
As her story unfolds, we are drawn into her past. We meet Hagar as
a young girl growing up in a black prairie town; as the wife of a
virile but unsuccessful farmer with whom her marriage was stormy;
as a mother who dominates her younger son; and, finally, as an old
woman isolated by an uncompromising pride and by the stern virtues
she has inherited from her pioneer ancestors.
Vivid, evocative, moving, The Stone Angel celebrates the
triumph of the spirit, and reveals Margaret Laurence at the height
of her powers as a writer of extraordinary craft and profound
insight into the workings of the human heart.
From the Hardcover edition.
From the Jacket
"One of the most convincing - and the most touching - portraits of
an unregenerate sinner."
-Time
From the Hardcover edition.
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.
Mass Market Paperbound
328 Pages, 4.2 x 7 x 1.1 IN
October 1, 1988
McClelland & Stewart
0771099894
9780771099892