T he Constructed Mennonite: History, Memory and the Second World War is the biography of a man called Hans, written by his son, Hans. It is this simple fact that makes it a gripping book. The son (hereafter referred to as Werner) is a historian whose explicit aims are made clear in paragraphs about memory at the end of each…
Magdalene Redekop
Magdalene Redekop is a professor emerita in the Department of English at the University of Toronto and the author of numerous articles on Mennonite culture. She is writing a book entitled Making Believe: Mennonites and the Crisis of Representation.
Articles by
Magdalene Redekop
Who’s Afraid of Alice Munro?
A long-awaited biography gives the facts, but not the mystery, behind this writer’s genius May 2006
On a sun-drenched day in the summer of 1999, I had the rare pleasure of lunching with Canada’s most beloved storyteller. The transcript of our conversation is listed in the bibliography of Robert Thacker’s long-awaited biography of Alice Munro and it is described as having taken place in Stratford, Ontario. This is a glitch in an admirably accurate…
The Importance of Being Mennonite
Hilarious, heart-breaking comedy told by a gifted, creative liar October 2004
In print, the name looks as if it should rhyme with toes, but if you are familiar with the way English is spoken by prairie Mennonites, you know that they flatten the pesky German umlaut. “Toews Rhymes with Raves” was one helpful recent headline. In Low German, we go with the swing of the umlaut and opt for Tifes—to rhyme with…