Miriam Toews

Between 2005 and 2009, in a remote religious Mennonite colony, over a hundred girls and women were knocked unconscious and raped, often repeatedly, by what many thought were ghosts or demons, as a punishment for their sins. As the women tentatively began to share the details of the attacks -- waking up sore and bleeding and not understanding why -- their stories were chalked up to 'wild female imagination.' Women Talking is an imagined response to...

This “darkly funny and provocative” coming-of-age novel balances grief and hope in the voice of a witty teenage girl whose Canadian family is shattered by fundamentalist Christianity (O, The Oprah Magazine).
From the author of Women Talking—now an Academy Award-winning film starring Claire Foy, Rooney Mara, Frances McDormand, and Jessie Buckley
“Half of our family, the better–looking...

"[A] memorable portrait of a struggling young person who finds unexpected resilience and peace . . . Hilarious, heartbreaking, and poignant." —Booklist
Miriam Toews welcomes her readers to the Have–a–Life housing project (better known as Half–a–Life). The welfare regulations are endless and the rate–fink neighbors won't mind their own business. Lucy Von Alstyne sends fictitious letters to her friend...

This novel follows a young Mennonite woman, vulnerable yet wise beyond her years, who carries a terrible family secret with her on a remarkable journey to survival and redemption. Nineteen-year-old Irma lives in a rural Mennonite community in Mexico. She has already been cast out of her family for marrying a young Mexican ne'er-do-well she barely knows, although she remains close to her rebellious younger sister and yearns for the lost intimacy with...

Do nothing. Stay and fight. Or leave. In 2010, the women of an isolated religious community grapple with reconciling a brutal reality with their faith. The women of an insular, ultraconservative religious community grapple with reconciling a brutal reality with their faith. Through the backstory, we see a community of women come together in the aftermath of pervasive sexual assault to figure out how they might move forward to build a better world...

Follows a goup of women in an isolated ultraconservative Mennonite colony who face the trauma of realizing that they have been drugged and raped by men from their community.