A Shelter for All: Margaret Laurence’s A Tree for Poverty: Somali Poetry and Prose

This paper revolves around Canadian author Margaret Laurence’s translated collection of Somali poetry and prose. The collection was a result of her keen observation of the Somali culture and literature which was in oral form. After overcoming the initial reservations of the native community of Somali land, A Tree for Poverty: Somali Poetry and Prose includes Laurence's comments on around ten different types of Somali poetry, translated versions of thirty poems and paraphrases of thirty six tales both Somali and Arabic. These honest and sincere translations of the Somali literature and the frantic efforts to understand and accept Somali people their culture and their society all these factors prove one very important fact. This is that Margaret Laurence always wanted to be understood not as a typical Memsahib but as new comer, a person who seriously wanted to be accepted by her fellow dwellers in a true sense.