And of course there's no recourse for them when these types things happen. but the reality is too, of course, that they're human beings.Įven at the trial, the real trial of these rapists, the women weren't allowed to testify themselves.
It's easy to think of these people in these closed colonies, in these remote places, isolated, as sort of freaks, and cultists, in a way. And I wanted these women to ask each other these questions and to have that conversation. But I also had all of these questions, questions that I've had all of my life, having been born and raised and grown up in a conservative Mennonite community. When I heard about what had happened in Manitoba Colony, in Bolivia, I was horrified like everybody else. I didn't want to reenact these crimes, the rapes. On not describing the violence at the center of the story The implication is that the women will go on to write their own story. And in the end, of course, that document, the minutes are irrelevant to the women - they can't read them, they have far more important things to do. But more importantly, it was kind of an inversion of roles, or role reversal, in that August is the secretary to the women, really, and the women are the philosophers, the women are the ones who are making an important decision. Given that the content of the book is the minutes of these meetings, it was necessary that there was someone who could read and write, write especially. Maybe they're able to write their name, maybe, but for the most part, they are illiterate. To forgive somebody for having done something to you, it's a good feeling, but it's a religious concept, and it's there in order to keep the peace within these colonies.įirst of all, just on a very pragmatic level, the women in these colonies aren't educated. "The options they're considering are to stay and fight, to leave and to do nothing."
"There are eight women, two families, different generations, teenagers and then their mothers and their grandmothers, and all of the women have been attacked, have been raped, including the young children of the women there, and they have two days, 48 hours, to figure out what to do," she says. Toews takes that story and imagines what happened next, as the women gather in a hayloft and discuss how to respond. Miriam Toews' new book Women Talking is based on a ghastly true story - here's the opening sentence: "Between 20, in a remote Mennonite colony in Bolivia, many girls and women would wake in the morning feeling drowsy and in pain, having been attacked in the night."Įventually it was revealed that men from the colony were drugging and raping the women. How?Įditor's note: This story concerns sexual violence Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Women Talking Author Miriam Toews
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