Rudy Wiebe
Rudy Wiebe is a prominent Canadian writer known for his deep-rooted Mennonite heritage and his exploration of cultural narratives, particularly those involving Indigenous peoples. Born in 1934 to Russian Mennonite parents who fled persecution, Wiebe's early life in Saskatchewan heavily influenced his literary voice, as he grew up immersed in stories of his family's past in Russia. His debut novel, "Peace Shall Destroy Many," published in 1962, drew significant attention and controversy for its portrayal of Mennonite life, leading to his resignation from the Mennonite Herald.
Wiebe pursued higher education, earning degrees in theology and literature, and he later taught at the University of Alberta. His literary contributions include "The Temptations of Big Bear," which won a Governor General's Award and highlights the struggles of Plains Cree leader Big Bear. Wiebe's later works, such as "A Discovery of Strangers" and "Of This Earth: A Mennonite Boyhood in the Boreal Forest," further explore the intersections of cultural identity, spirituality, and history. Recognized for his challenging narrative style, Wiebe continues to engage with themes of loss and memory while addressing broader cultural and historical contexts in Canadian literature.
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Subject Terms
Rudy Wiebe
Writer
- Born: October 4, 1934
- Birthplace: Fairholme, Saskatchewan, Canada
Author Profile
Writer. Rudy Wiebe’s identity as a Mennonite and western Canadian writer was shaped in his earliest years. His parents came to Canada in 1930, having fled religious persecution in Russia. In 1933, the year before Wiebe was born, his parents settled with other Russian Mennonites in Speedwell-Jackpine, Saskatchewan, a harsh, lonely, demanding land where he lived for his first thirteen years.
The life of the community centered on the church, and for Wiebe, the stories that nurtured him “were of Russia, of czars and villages and Bolsheviks and starvation and anarchists and war and religious fights.” Wiebe’s Mennonite background was reinforced at the Mennonite high school in Coaldale, Alberta, where his family moved in 1947, and later at the Mennonite Brethren Bible College in Winnipeg, where he earned a bachelor of theology degree in 1961.
Wiebe’s first novel, Peace Shall Destroy Many, relates specifically to his Mennonite heritage and describes life in a community much like the one in which he was reared. It aroused such controversy at its publication in 1962 that Wiebe resigned his position as editor of the Mennonite Herald. By 1962, Wiebe had also studied abroad at the University of Tübingen, married Tena Isaak, and received a master of arts degree. The following year, he earned his first teaching position at a Mennonite institution in Goshen, Indiana, where he was working when he released his second book, First and Vital Candle (1966). The book’s theme is spirtuality and the western United States. From there, he returned to Canada in 1967 to accept a long-term position teaching creative writing and literature at the University of Alberta. His third novel, The Blue Mountains of China (1970), shows significant development in style and structure.
Wiebe next turned his focus to the traditions of native peoples and those who have interacted with them. The Temptations of Big Bear (1973), tells the heroic story of a Plains Cree leader's struggle to hold on to his people's way of life. The book won a Governor General's Award. In a lecture on Frederick Philip Grove, he describes how in addition to his Mennonite culture, his place, his land, became important to him as a writer: “That impossibility of imagining truth about my place was one reason I became so angry when I at last discovered that the world of my childhood had stories too, stories I had never heard: of Big Bear and Wandering Spirit and Gabriel Dumont and Almighty Voice and William McKay and the Frenchman who was carved up by Indians for trading crookedly and whose memory, not even his name, is still commemorated by the strange geological formation called Frenchman Butte; there are hundreds of stories though I never heard them, then.”
After retiring and becoming professor emeritus in 1992, Wiebe published his first new novel in many years in 1994, titled A Discovery of Strangers. This book, chronicling the first encounter between the Europeans and the Dene people, won him another Governor General's Award. While continuing to write fiction, he also penned the memoir Of This Earth: A Mennonite Boyhood in the Boreal Forest (2007). In 2014, he resurrected a character from his very first book for his new novel Come Back, focusing on the theme of premature loss. In his seventies, he released Where the Truth Lies: Selected Essays (2016), a compilation of forty years of essays and speeches.
Of his fiction, the critic Susan Whaley writes, “Rudy Wiebe’s art is neither Christian, nor ethnic, nor regional, although each of these concerns certainly informs his work.” Wiebe still writes unapologetically from his viewpoint as a Christian. He has gained a reputation as a “difficult” writer with his later novels and stories. He has continued to develop his style and technique, experimenting with narrative form in his explorations of cultural history and of Native American and other Canadian figures.
Bibliography
Beck, Ervin. “Postcolonial Complexity in the Writings of Rudy Wiebe.” Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 47, no. 4, 2001, pp. 855–886.
Bilan, R. P. “Wiebe and Religious Struggle.” Canadian Literature, vol. 77, 1978, pp. 50–63.
Isaacs, Julienne. "Come Back: A Father Is Haunted by His Son's Suicide in Rudy Wiebe's New Novel." Globe and Mail, 24 Oct. 2014. www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/book-reviews/come-back-a-father-is-haunted-by-his-sons-suicide-in-rudy-wiebes-new-novel/article21288291/. Accessed 22 Apr. 2023.
Keith, W. J. Epic Fiction: The Art of Rudy Wiebe. U of Alberta P, 1981.
Manbridge, Francis. “Wiebe’s Sense of Community.” Canadian Literature, vol. 77, 1978, pp. 42–49.
Solecki, Sam. “Giant Fictions and Large Meanings: The Novels of Rudy Wiebe.” Canadian Forum, vol. 60, no. 707, 1981, pp. 5–8.
Toorn, Penny van. “Dialogizing the Scriptures: A Bakhtinian Reading of the Novels of Rudy Wiebe.” Literature & Theology, vol. 9 no. 4, 1995, pp. 439–448.
Toorn, Penny van. Rudy Wiebe and the Historicity of the Word. U of Alberta P, 1995.
Weisman, Adam Paul. “Reading Multiculturalism in the United States and Canada: The Anthological versus the Cognitive.” University of Toronto Quarterly, vol. 69, no. 3, 2000, pp. 689–715.
Wiebe, Rudy. Of This Earth: A Mennonite Boyhood in the Boreal Forest. Good Books, 2007.
Whaley, Susan. Rudy Wiebe and His Works. 1983. U of Toronto P, 1987.