Margaret Laurence
Former residence, 3500 Block, W. 21st Ave.
"The world is even smaller now.
It’s shrinking so quickly."
From The Stone Angel
Award-winning and beloved writer Margaret Laurence wrote the first draft of one of this country’s greatest novels, The Stone Angel, while living here from 1958 to 1962. Her first novel, This Side Jordan, was published in 1960 and much of The Fire-Dwellers was set in Vancouver. Her West Coast years were difficult, given the social strictures of the time. She and her husband separated, and Laurence and her two children moved to England in 1962. She eventually made her home in Lakefield, Ontario, from 1974 until her death in 1987. In 2014, she was named a National Historic Person by the federal government. “The good things that happened to me [in Vancouver],” she said, “were, among others, my meeting with Ethel Wilson and her great kindness and encouragement… I never felt at home in Vancouver, although I admired it a lot.”
