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THE RESONANCE OF MANAWAKA: LANDSCAPES OF RECONCILIATION IN MARGARET LAURENCES MANAWAKA SERIES ——o— PAVLiINA STUDENA Abstract During the 1960s and 1970s, Prairie fiction and literary criticism predominantly adopted a regionalist perspective. However, with gender, class, and ethnicity in the spotlight, this perception of the region has shifted from a preoccupation with physical landscapes toward the explorations of individual spaces of people inhabiting this distinct region and their inner landscapes. In Margaret Laurence’s Manawaka series, the vast expanse of the Canadian Prairies serves as a transformative literary landscape in which Laurence weaves together the stories of settlers and the Métis, representing both the dominant and marginalized communities. Laurence challenges the prevailing Pioneer myth of conquering uninhibited land by emphasizing the role of the landscape as a catalyst for transformation for her protagonists. By interweaving the region’s mythological past into the protagonists’ journeys towards self-discovery, independence and dignity, Laurence conveys the idea of reconciliation on both personal and national levels. This paper focuses on the opening and concluding Manawaka novels, The Stone Angel (1964) and The Diviners (1974), aiming to trace how Laurence employs various landscapes, whether Prairie, mythological, ancestral, or imaginary, as potent instruments aiding the protagonists — and metaphorically Canada itself - in the process of transformation and liberation. These landscapes also symbolize reconciliation with nature, colonial history, and Indigenous heritage. Keywords: identity; landscape, Manawaka, Margaret Laurence, prairie fiction, reconciliation, transformation Résumé Au cours des années 1960 et 1970, la fiction et la critique littéraire des Prairies ont surtout adopté une perspective régionaliste. Cependant, avec la mise en lumiére des questions de genre, de classe et d’ethnicité, cette perception de la région est passée d’une préoccupation pour les paysages physiques à l'exploration des espaces individuels des habitants de cette région distincte et de leurs « 53 ¢
