The Diviners

by Margaret Laurence

  Five people out on the lawn beside a river: chairs and grass and water and one of them reading as the dark comes on:

  “…and Morag was never afraid of anything in this whole wide world. Never. If they came to a forest, would this Morag there be scared? Not on your christly life. She would only laugh and say, Forests cannot hurt me because I have the power and the second sight and the good eye and the strength of conviction.

  “What means The Strength of Conviction?”

  “Morag sleeps.”

  Not Margaret Laurence.

  What means the strength of conviction?

  Perhaps, when you have let The Diviners sigh and let it settle, you will know.

  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.

  BY MARGARET LAURENCE

  AUTOBIOGRAPHY

  The Prophet’s Camel Bell (1963)

  Dance on the Earth (1989)

  ESSAYS

  Long Drums and Cannons: Nigerian Dramatists and Novelists 1952–1966 (1968)

  Heart of a Stranger (1976)

  FICTION

  This Side Jordan (1960)

  The Tomorrow-Tamer (1963)

  The Stone Angel (1964)

  A Jest of God (1966)

  The Fire-Dwellers (1979)

  A Bird in the House (1970)

  The Diviners (1974)

  FICTION FOR YOUNG ADULTS

  Jason’s Quest (1970)

  Six Darn Cows (1979)

  The Olden Days Coat (1979)

  The Christmas Birthday Story (1980)

  LETTERS

  Margaret Laurence–Al Purdy: A Friendship in Letters [ed. John Lennox] (1993)

  Selected Letters of Margaret Laurence and Adele Wiseman [ed. John Lennox and Ruth Panofsky] (1997)

  HISTORY

  A Tree for Poverty: Somali Poetry and Prose (1954)

  Copyright © 1974 by Margaret Laurence

  Afterword copyright © 1988 by Pebble Productions Inc.

  First published in 1974 by McClelland & Stewart.

  First New Canadian Library edition 1988.

  This New Canadian Library edition 2007.

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher–or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency–is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Laurence, Margaret, 1926-1987

  The diviners / Margaret Laurence; with an afterword by Timothy Findley.

  (New Canadian library)

  Originally published: 1974.

  eISBN: 978-1-55199-243-3

  I. Title. II. Series.

  PS8523.A86D5 2007 C813'.54 C2007-903188-9

  We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.

  McClelland & Stewart Ltd.

  75 Sherbourne Street

  Toronto, Ontario

  M5A 2P9

  www.mcclelland.com/NCL

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