Award-winning author Wiebe in B.C.

By David F. Dawes

RENOWNED author Rudy Wiebe will present readings from his latest novel at two locations early this month.

As part of the Arts and Peace Festival at the University College of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, he will conduct a workshop March 2, and present readings during a coffeehouse at 7:30 pm; and he will appear at Trinity Western University (TWU) March 4 at 7 pm, at the Northwest Building Auditorium. Wiebe is an Officer of the Order of Canada, and has twice won the Governor General's Award. He has often written about his Mennonite heritage, and his eighth novel is his most ambitious exploration of these roots.

Sweeter Than All the World -- whose title is taken from a Mennonite hymn -- is a sweeping saga which covers half a millennium of history. Framed by a story set in Alberta, the book depicts the lives of Mennonites from the 16th century onward. The central character is Adam Wiebe, an affluent, self-centred and adulterous doctor who is forced to face his failed marriage; when his daughter disappears, he turns to explorations of his ancestry for meaning and consolation.

The author has drawn upon his own Russian Mennonite background to produce a novel dealing with the history of the Wiebe family, from the days of the Reformation onward. Skipping back and forth through history, and set in countries as diverse as the Soviet Union, Holland, Poland, Chile and Paraguay, the narrative encompasses real and fictitious characters, including: early Mennonite martyrs; a 17th century engineer credited with inventing the cable car system; an artist whose church forbade him to paint, who was later acclaimed by English royalty; and a woman raped and murdered by Soviet soldiers during World War II.

"The Mennonites have a unique history," Wiebe recently told Prairie Books Now. "For 500 years, they have tried to live a life that is non-violent, in a society that is powerfully and desperately violent. This is intriguing for a writer."

To enrich a novel's narrative, he added, "It's important for characters to continue questioning. In the Mennonite community, you're not baptized as a child, but as an adult -- a time when you're expected to have questioned your faith and made the decision as to whether or not you want to be a part of the community. . . . As a novelist, that is an interesting point to set a story to -- when people are forced to make the decision about what kind of life they want to live, and what kind of commitment they want to make to their society."

Wiebe said that he had derived a lot of fulfilment from writing Sweeter Than All the World. "I love telling these stories, because most people -- not even the Mennonite community -- don't know that history is filled with many Mennonites who contributed greatly, in many significant ways."

Arts & Peace info: 604-850-6639; TWU info: 604-513-2080.