Miriam Toews
Miriam Toews
Miriam Toewsis a Canadian writer, best known for her novels A Complicated Kindness and All My Puny Sorrows. She has won a number of literary prizes including the Governor General's Award for Fiction and the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award for body of work. She is also a two-time finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a two-time winner of the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionWriter
CountryCanada
Miriam Toews quotes about
aspect fiction kids order playful restore seem sort
When everything does seem out of control, writing fiction is a way I can order that chaos and restore some sort of meaning. I like the playful aspect of writing fiction. You know how it is when we are kids and we make up our worlds: You be this guy, and I am going to be this guy, and we are going to go slay dragons.
becomes cathartic create easier experience felt helps order outpouring understand whatever
Writing helps me to create order out of chaos and make sense of things. It helps me to understand what I've experienced, what I've felt and seen, so it becomes a little easier to handle. On the other hand, I don't want it to be just a cathartic experience, an outpouring of grief or whatever it is.
antagonism close love needing share sisters theme
The theme of sisters - of missing sisters, of needing sisters, the special love that sisters share or the antagonism sisters share - is something that is very close to me.
exhausting mentally physically takes
I have a problem with beginnings... and endings... and middles. But I don't know what else I would do. I find it very, very difficult to write. It takes everything; it's physically and mentally and emotionally exhausting for me. And my neighbours. And my dog.
featured settings sixth time
'Irma Voth' is my sixth book, but it's only the third time I've featured Mennonite settings and characters.
art elaborate functions myths narratives taught
Like every Canadian, I have been taught that one of the most important functions of art is to supply and elaborate the myths and narratives of nationhood.
depressed despair fame loving people point profound strike
A lot of times, people think that it doesn't make sense for people to be depressed when they have everything, a loving husband, a successful career, fame and fortune. I wanted to make this point that profound despair can strike anybody.
easier sort truth
This is a cliche, but in fiction, I feel it is easier for me to get to some sort of truth, some kind of more honest writing.
background canadian deny identified possess therefore
I would never want to deny my Mennonite background and culture; I'll always feel like and be identified as a Mennonite and therefore possess that little extra authority on our beliefs. I also see myself as a Canadian writer.
assisted call euthanasia individual life notion physical psychic
The whole notion of pain, and how every individual experiences pain, is up for debate. We don't know how another person experiences pain - physical pain or psychic pain. Some of these clinics where assisted suicide or euthanasia is practiced, they call it 'weariness of life.'
road-trip window rhythm
I love road trips. You get into this Zen rhythm; throw sense of time out the window.
erotic masters prose
David Bergen is a master of taut, spare prose that's both erotic and hypnotic. . . .
background genuine good love religious strive
You don't need a religious background to strive for something good, for genuine compassion and love for others.
depressed incumbent people ridiculous sister smile
With my father and sister being very depressed for most of their lives, it was incumbent on me to try to make them laugh, in this ridiculous way. They were the wittiest people I knew, but to get a smile from them was like winning the lottery.