Mennonites are a group of Anabaptist Christian communities tracing their roots to the epoch of the Radical Reformation. The name Mennonites is derived from the cleric Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland, part of the Holy Roman Empire, present day Netherlands. Menno Simons became a prominent leader within the wider Anabaptist movement and was a contemporary of Martin Luther (1483–1546) and Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560). Through his writings about the Reformation Simons articulated and formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss Anabaptist founders as well as early teachings of the Mennonites founded on the belief in both the mission and ministry of Jesus. Formal Mennonite beliefs were codified in the Dordrecht Confession of Faith (1632), which affirmed "the baptism of believers only, the washing of the feet as a symbol of servanthood, church discipline, the shunning of the excommunicated, the non-swearing of oaths, marriage within the same church", nonresistance, and in general, more emphasis on "true Christianity" involving "being Christian and obeying Christ" as they interpret it from the Holy Bible.
Rudy Henry Wiebe is a Canadian author and professor emeritus in the department of English at the University of Alberta since 1992. Rudy Wiebe was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in the year 2000.
Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) is a private Mennonite university located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It is affiliated with Mennonite Church Canada and the Mennonite Brethren Church of Manitoba. It has an enrolment of 1,607 students. The university was chartered in 1999 with a Shaftesbury campus in southwest Winnipeg, as well as Menno Simons College and a campus at the University of Winnipeg.
Coaldale is a town in southern Alberta, Canada, located 11 km (6.8 mi) east of Lethbridge, along the Crowsnest Highway. Coaldale became a village in 1919 and then became incorporated as a town in 1952.
Cornelius W. Wiebe, was a Canadian physician and politician.
Jean Val Jean is a 1935 novel by Solomon Cleaver. It is a much abbreviated retelling in English of Victor Hugo's 1862 novel Les Misérables.
A Complicated Kindness (2004) is the third novel by Canadian author Miriam Toews. The novel won the Governor General's Award for English Fiction, the CBA Libris Fiction Award, and CBC's Canada Reads.
Klaas Reimer (1770–1837) was the founder of the Kleine Gemeinde, a Mennonite denomination that still exists in Latin America, but underwent radical changes in Canada where it is now called the Evangelical Mennonite Conference. Ethnic Mennonite remigrants from Latin America brought the original Kleine Gemeinde back to Canada and the US.
Armin Wiebe is a Canadian writer from Winnipeg, Manitoba, best known for his humorous novels about Mennonites. Wiebe is regarded as one of the pioneers of humorous Mennonite writing in English and is known for his incorporation of Plautdietsch words within his English texts.
NeWest Press is a Canadian publishing company. Established in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1977, the company grew out of a literary magazine, NeWest Review, which had been launched in 1975. Early members of the collective that established the company included writer Rudy Wiebe and University of Alberta academics Douglas Barbour, George Melnyk, and Diane Bessai.
Hard Passage: A Mennonite Family's Long Journey from Russia to Canada is a 2007 book by Arthur Kroeger about his family's experiences in Russia (Ukraine), the Soviet Union, and their journey to Canada (Alberta).
The East Reserve was a block settlement in Manitoba set aside by the Government of Canada exclusively for settlement by Russian Mennonite settlers in 1873. Most of the East Reserve's earliest settlers were from the Kleine Gemeinde or Bergthaler Mennonite churches.
Katie Funk Wiebe was an influential Canadian-American writer, speaker and historian of Russian Mennonite background. Funk Wiebe was born and grew up in Saskatchewan, Canada, and attended Mennonite Brethren Bible College, later Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg, before getting married and relocating to Hillsboro, Kansas. She taught at Bethany Bible Institute and Tabor College, and authored many books on Mennonite Brethren history, with a particular focus on women's issues in the church. As such she is considered a pioneer of feminist Mennonite writing. She died in 2016 in Wichita, Kansas.
Andrew Unger is a Canadian novelist and satirist. He is the author of the satirical news website The Unger Review, as well as the novel Once Removed and the collection The Best of the Bonnet.
Mennonite literature emerged in the mid-to-late 20th century as both a literary movement and a distinct genre. Mennonite literature refers to literary works created by or about Mennonites.
Elmer E. 'Al' Reimer (1927–2015) was a Mennonite writer from Steinbach, Manitoba. Reimer was an important literary critic and writer in the emergence of southern Manitoba Mennonite literature during the 1970s and 80s. Born in Landmark, Manitoba, Reimer grew up in Steinbach and received his PhD at Yale University. He taught English literature at University of Winnipeg for many years.
The Salvation of Yasch Siemens is the first novel by the Canadian author Armin Wiebe. The book tells the story of Yasch and his love interest Oata set in the fictional Mennonite community of Gutenthal. The book, published by Turnstone Press, was shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour and was an important milestone in Mennonite literature, being one of the first Mennonite novels in English to incorporate humour. The book is also known for its Plautdietschisms. Wiebe followed up the book with five more novels set in Gutenthal. A thirty-fifth anniversary edition of The Salvation of Yasch Siemens was published by Turnstone in 2019 with an afterword by Nathan Dueck.
Audrey Poetker is a Canadian poet and translator from New Bothwell, Manitoba.
Once Removed is a novel by Canadian author Andrew Unger published in 2020. Published by Turnstone Press, the book is a satire set in the fictional town of Edenfeld, Manitoba and tells the story of Timothy Heppner, a ghostwriter trying to preserve the history of his small Mennonite town.
