Review of \u3ci\u3eOf This Earth: A Mennonite Boyhood in the Boreal Forest\u3c/i\u3e By Rudy Wiebe

Rudy Wiebe, author of nine novels and three collections of stories as well as numerous other works, is best known for his historical fiction-particularly for novels featuring Canada\u27s Native peoples. A first-generation Canadian whose German-speaking Mennonite parents fled Stalinist Ukraine in 1929 and then homesteaded in Saskatchewan, Wiebe has tended to set his fiction on the prairies or in the north. Appalled by the prevailing view that the Plains were empty before European immigrants arrived, he has consistently worked to document the repressed history of Canada. His writing has focused not only on the First Nations of his native land, however, but also on his own immigrant people. Wiebe\u27s considerable power is evident in all his writing, but arguably it is in his more autobiographically-infused work-especially his Mennonite fiction-that his readers might find a distinctly generous, lyrical tone of voice. It is this voice, so beautifully sustained, so intimate and engaging, that draws readers into Of This Earth. Forty-four years after the publication of his first novel, Peace Shall Destroy Many (1962), which revealed enough autobiographical detail to provoke a hostile reception from members of his community, Wiebe has returned to his childhood among the Mennonites. Invoking in this poignant, humorous, and utterly compelling memoir the innocent perspective of a young boy-and drawing upon family stories, diaries, and memory-laden photographsWiebe intrigues and deeply satisfies his reader. His authorial self-reflexive musings throughout add a level of reflection that never rudely interrupts but richly enhances this narrative of a solitary and imaginative child

Review of \u3ci\u3eOf This Earth: A Mennonite Boyhood in the Boreal Forest\u3c/i\u3e By Rudy Wiebe

Rudy Wiebe, author of nine novels and three collections of stories as well as numerous other works, is best known for his historical fiction-particularly for novels featuring Canada\u27s Native peoples. A first-generation Canadian whose German-speaking Mennonite parents fled Stalinist Ukraine in 1929 and then homesteaded in Saskatchewan, Wiebe has tended to set his fiction on the prairies or in the north. Appalled by the prevailing view that the Plains were empty before European immigrants arrived, he has consistently worked to document the repressed history of Canada. His writing has focused not only on the First Nations of his native land, however, but also on his own immigrant people. Wiebe\u27s considerable power is evident in all his writing, but arguably it is in his more autobiographically-infused work-especially his Mennonite fiction-that his readers might find a distinctly generous, lyrical tone of voice. It is this voice, so beautifully sustained, so intimate and engaging, that draws readers into Of This Earth. Forty-four years after the publication of his first novel, Peace Shall Destroy Many (1962), which revealed enough autobiographical detail to provoke a hostile reception from members of his community, Wiebe has returned to his childhood among the Mennonites. Invoking in this poignant, humorous, and utterly compelling memoir the innocent perspective of a young boy-and drawing upon family stories, diaries, and memory-laden photographsWiebe intrigues and deeply satisfies his reader. His authorial self-reflexive musings throughout add a level of reflection that never rudely interrupts but richly enhances this narrative of a solitary and imaginative child

Mother Tongue as Shibboleth in the Literature of Canadian Mennonites

Even as certain Canadian Mennonite writers objectify (and so appear to threaten, and even subvert) the conventions and rituals that sustain the Mennonites' centuries-old identity as "a people apart," many of them employ linguistic devices that function to endorse and support the Mennonites' exclusivistic culture -- characterized by the affirmation of the insider and suspicion of the outsider. Indeed, through the persistent use of a linguistic discourse that often only "insiders" can understand -- by their use, that is, of mother tongue (German and Low German) -- these writers maintain, and perhaps even extend, the barriers that separate the Mennonites' minority culture from the contemporary social order

Chapitre 11. L’imprimé religieux

Livres et périodiques pour une communauté en plein développement STUART CLARKSON ET DANIEL O’LEARY Les livres religieux que distribuait la missionnaire Annie MacPherson dans la campagne ontarienne jouissaient d’une telle popularité que Charlie, le cheval de la mission, paraissait « instinctivement s’arrêter lorsqu’il croisait un piéton pour que puisse être extrait de [ses] sacoches bien remplies quelque tract ou livre » qu’on « s’arrachait et lisait avec frénésie ». Les imprimés religieux, di..

Histoire du livre et de l’imprimé au Canada, Volume II

Entre 1840 et 1918, l’imprimé et le livre, qui avaient déjà contribué à l’élaboration de l’histoire et de l’identité du peuple canadien, deviennent désormais les médias de communication prédominants. Plus que jamais la culture de l’imprimé participe aux transformations qui métamorphoseront la colonie en véritable État, unifiant les peuples qui le composent. C’est cette synergie qui constituera l’un des aspects historiques et culturels les plus fascinants de cette période qui est au centre de ce deuxième volume de l’Histoire du livre et de l’imprimé au Canada. L’expansion du territoire canadien grâce à l’immigration massive, sa traversée par le chemin de fer et par la télégraphie renouvellent entièrement la dynamique de l’imprimé, de Terre-Neuve à Dawson City. Après 1880, l’imprimé de masse voit le jour grâce à la nouvelle technologie qui permet d’imprimer plus rapidement et à moindre coût, et grâce à la constitution de nouveaux marchés desservis par les librairies. Du missel au journal en passant par le livre de recette, le catalogue d’Eaton et l’almanach, les Canadiens sont dorénavant en contact quotidien avec cet objet matériel qu’est l’imprimé. Dans ce contexte, l’auteur émerge lentement, soutenu par un marché de distribution à l’échelle nord-américaine, par un nombre croissant de bibliothèques publiques et par des droits conquis pour la protection de son œuvre et sa diffusion