Manawaka is not the Neepawa, Manitoba where Margaret Laurence grew up. Its geography, the details of its situation, its landmarks, and its people depend on her experience of Neepawa and ability to store in memory and transmute what she knew and felt into a fictional world.All the history of her town has been woven into the Manawaka works, particularly the cataclysmic events of her effects of the First World War and actuality of the depression and Second World War.
