Banned Books Countdown: The Diviners by Margaret Laurence
Many writers are delighted when their books are challenged.
Margaret Laurence was not one of these. She was deeply shocked when schools in the Peterborough area challenged her novel The Diviners in 1976. Some of her distress may have had to do with the disdain of a number of letter writers in Canadian newspapers at the time, one of whom for example opined that "the educators in Peterborough would be deficient in their duties if regard were not had for those whose values and sensibilities might be offended by profanity and explicit sex as found in Mrs. Laurence's "work of art."1 Other anonymous poison pen letters sent directly to her, comparing her to well known "pornographers" such as Xaviera Hollander or Jacqueline Susann wouldn't have helped matters.2
The Diviners was certainly not the first book to depict sex or even interracial sex. But as we have seen with the case of Slaughterhouse-Five, censors often focus their efforts where they have been led by others rather than by familiarity with an author or literary precedents. Perhaps if it hadn't won the Governor General's Literary Award, the Diviners might never have caused such a stir!
Although she wrote one or two children's books and non fiction works afterward, the Diviners turned out to be Margaret Laurence's last novel.
1 Toronto Star. Friday February 13th 1976 p7 Letters
2 Turcon, Shiela. The Censorship of Margaret Laurence's The Diviners from McMaster Digital Archives.
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