Miriam Toews Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Miriam Toews Biography

Miriam Toews is the author of the internationally acclaimed and bestselling novels Fight Night, Women Talking, All My Puny Sorrows, Irma Voth, The Flying Troutmans, A Complicated Kindness, A Boy of Good Breeding, and Summer of My Amazing Luck, and one prior work of non-fiction, Swing Low: A Life. She is the winner of numerous awards, including the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction, the Libris Award for Fiction, the Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, and the Writers' Trust Engel Findley Award. Several of her novels have been made into feature films, including All My Puny Sorrows and the Oscar-nominated Women Talking. Miriam Toews lives in Toronto.

Why is Towes pronounced Tayvz?
Toews is a common Mennonite Low German name, believed to be of Russian or Dutch origin. According to a number of sources, the likely transition seems to be that "van Toovs" or "Toovs" became "Tows" with an umlaut on the "o" when the family sought refuge in Germany. There is no English equivalent to umlaut "o", but the closest is the long "a" in "make"; "w" is pronounced "v" in German. And when the family moved to the US the umlaut o was converted to "oe." And thus Toews rhymes with waves!

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