Rudy Wiebe's unique contribution to Canadian literature has been to articulate an intense and comprehensive vision of human experience rooted in his Mennonite Christianity. For his seven novels, three volumes of short stories, and one play, Wiebe has drawn his subject matter from contemporary society and from Canadian and Mennonite history. He has given voice to a myth of the Canadian West that will undoubtedly find a permanent place in the national imagination, but his deepest interests go beyond questions of nationality or locale. For Wiebe the major issue is always how an individual or community fares in the endeavor to live according to authentic spiritual values.

Rudy Henry Wiebe was born 4 October 1934 in Fairholme, Saskatchewan, near the Mennonite community of Speedwell-Jackpine, to Abraham and Katarina Knelsen Wiebe, who had emigrated from Russia four years earlier. His first language was German; he learned English in the one-room schoolhouse...