THE PROPHET'S CAMEL BELL by Laurence, Margaret - 1963

Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1963. Book. Illus. by C. J. Martin;. Very Good+. Hardcover. First Edition. 8vo. 241 pp. Red cloth lettered in gilt on the spine; dustjacket photograph by C. J. Martin; map on the back of the jacket by W. Bromage; illustrated with black and white plates. Edge and corner wear on the dustjacket with a bit of fading around the edges; no interior markings. In the 1960s, Margaret Laurence set out for Somaliland in Africa with her engineer husband in the hope that friendliness and a liberal outlook would suffice to bridge the differences between East and West. But she soon began to discover the complexity and difficulty in any attempted communication between peoples of widely different cultures, religions, and ways of looking at life. Living out in camp, the author gradually came to know something of the life of the nomadic camel-herding Somalis, and to have a deep regard for these desert people who must struggle incessantly for survival in their barren land, but who manage also to produce many skilled orators, poets, and storytellers... The Contents are: Innocent Voyage; Footsteps; House in the Clouds; Jilal; Flowering Desert; Place of Exile; The Ballehs; Arrividerci, Italia; A Teller of Tales; Mohamed; Arabetto; The Old Warrior; A Tree for Poverty; The Imperialists; and Nabad Gelyo; followed by a glossary of Somali words and a bibliography..