Toews’s hometown still refuses to recognize or honour its famous daughter. Even after all the film and literary awards, and global acclaim, Ms. Toews once described the city as “a kind of no-frills bunker in which to live austerely, shun wrongdoers and kill some time, and joy, before The Rapture.” Memories here apparently run long. The current owner, a young francophone originally from neighbouring St-Pierre-Jolys, says he sometimes sees fans of hers huddling on the sidewalk, peering into his picture window. It is not hard to imagine the old Toews residence one day becoming a museum, akin to the Margaret Laurence Home in Neepawa, Man. Kindness opens with a description of “that low brick bungalow out on highway number twelve” – and its once-shattered window. Toews, who now lives in Toronto, quipped that she is just glad to hear the window’s been fixed.

Told that her old home in Steinbach remains intact, Ms. Toews, shown at her Toronto home, is waiting to see how the movie based on her book Women Talking fares at the Oscars. Her voice is as alive, arch and curious over the phone as it is on the page. Toews, cackling uproariously at being asked about her clothes in an interview. “Oh man – this is all so strange, and new,” said Ms. “I just can’t do it.” Fellow Mennonite Jill Sawatzky, founder of the Winnipeg-based brand Tony Chestnut, designed a silky and elegant “slouchy suit” instead. “I’m not wearing a dress – I don’t think I’ll ever wear one again,” she said. Women Talking, the film made of her 2018 novel of the same name, is up for two Oscars, including Best Picture, at Sunday’s Academy Awards. Sarah Polley, Daniel Roher and Adrien Morot: Canadians who won Oscars at the 95th Academy Awards Abrams called Women Talking “profoundly powerful, stirring and moving.” Her recent profile in The New Yorker topped 20 pages. Toews is really testing the perception of Mennonites as a people “in the world but not of the world.” Brad Pitt adores her writing. Today, some two-thirds of its population of 18,000 remain ethnically or religiously Mennonite. Toews is descended from Kleine Gemeinde Mennonite pioneers who founded Manitoba’s third-largest city.

Toews miriam