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How to pronounce Miriam Toews: Tayvz (rhymes with waves)
Miriam Toews is the author of five previous bestselling novels: Summer of My Amazing Luck, A Boy of Good Breeding, A Complicated Kindness (Canada Reads 2006, Canada Reads Canadian Bestseller of the Decade 2010), The Flying Troutmans, and Irma Voth, and one work of non-fiction, Swing Low: A Life. She is a winner of the Governor General's Award for Fiction, the Libris Award for Fiction Book of the Year, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, and the Writers Trust Marian Engel/Timothy Findley Award. She 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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In the video below, Miriam Toews talks about her experiences growing up in a Mennonite community and how acting in Carlos Reygada's film Silent Light impacted her novel, Irma Voth.
Miriam Toews on Mennonitism, acting in the film Silent Light, and writing Irma Voth
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