Rudy Wiebe
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Rudy Henry Wiebe (born 4 October 1934) is a Canadian author and professor emeritus in the department of English at the University of Alberta since 1992.
Wiebe was born at Speedwell, near Fairholme, Saskatchewan in what would later become his family’s chicken barn. For thirteen years he lived in an isolated community of about 250 people, as part of the last generation of homesteaders to settle the Canadian west. He did not speak English until age six since Mennonites customarily speak Low German (Plautdietsch) at home and High German at Church. He attended the small school three miles from his farm and the Speedwell Mennonite Brethren Church.
He received his B.A. in 1956 and then studied under a Rotary International Fellowship at the University of Tuebingen in West Germany, near Stuttgart. In 1958 he married Tena Isaak; they now have three children. In Germany, he studied literature and theology and traveled to England, Austria, Switzerland and Italy.
Wiebe taught at Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana from 1963 to 1967. He has been a world traveler and uses his experiences in his novels.
Wiebe was awarded the Royal Society of Canada's Lorne Pierce Medal in 1986. In 2000 he was made an officer of the Order of Canada. In 2003 Wiebe was a member of the jury for the Giller Prize.
Books by Rudy H. Wiebe
- River of Stone: Fictions and Memories
- Sweeter Than All the World
- Fruits of the Earth
- Peace Shall Destroy Many
- A Discovery of Strangers
- The Blue Mountains of China
- Stolen Life: The Journey of a Cree Women
- Playing Dead: A Contemplation Concerning the Arctic