One evening, eight Mennonite women climb into a hay loft to conduct a secret meeting. Women Talking is a wry, freewheeling novel of ideas that touches on the nature of evil, questions of free will, collective responsibility, cultural determinism, and, above all, forgiveness.' - New York Times Book Review, Editor's Choice “This amazing, sad, shocking, but touching novel, based on a real-life event, could be right out of The Handmaid's Tale.” -Margaret Atwood, on Twitter Now a major motion picture from writer/director Sarah Polley, starring Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, with Ben Whishaw and Frances McDormand. The internationally bestselling novel based on real events. Do they honor their religious beliefs to obey? Is it safe to stay? How will they fare in a world they have never seen? Where does forgiveness, if any, enter the equation? Should young sons considered men, be left behind? There is plenty for these women and everyone who reads this book to talk about. Their talk is transcribed by the schoolteacher, who grew up in the sect and teaches only boys. In this fictional account the women who are illiterate discuss what to do before the men post bail and return. Eventually the truth, that they were drugged and assaulted by male community members surfaced and those responsible were arrested.

The women lived in a remote Mennonite colony in Bolivia, and the patriarchal leaders tried to convince them that they were victims of demonic possession. Yet here we are.īetween 20 over 100 girls and women in a remote Mennonite community woke to find that they had been sexually assaulted. The fact that we (and they) are talking about this with logic and reason is completely ridiculous. In an author’s note, Toews (which rhymes with saves) writes that “ Women Talking is both a reaction through fiction to these true-life events, and an act of female imagination.” The astonishing result of this brave act puts me in mind of absurdist theater. Ghosts and demons were blamed, but eventually eight men from the colony were found guilty of the assaults. Between 20, in a remote Mennonite colony in Bolivia, hundreds of girls and women were raped in their sleep.

Women talking book cover