Background
Wiebe was born at Speedwell, near Fairholme, Saskatchewan in what would later become his family’s chicken barn.
Wiebe was born at Speedwell, near Fairholme, Saskatchewan in what would later become his family’s chicken barn.
He received his Bachelor of Arts in 1956 from the University of Alberta and then studied under a Rotary International Fellowship at the University of Tübingen in West Germany, near Stuttgart. In Germany, he studied literature and theology and travelled to England, Austria, Switzerland and Italy.
Foreign thirteen years he lived in an isolated community of about 250 people, as part of the last generation of homesteaders to settle the Canadian west. Wiebe"s novels include (1962), First and Vital Candle (1966), (1970), (1973), The Scorched-wood People (1977), (1980), (1983), (1994), and (2001). Thomas King says of that "Wiebe captures the pathos and the emotion of Native people at a certain point in their history and he does it well.
Wiebe points out to us that Canada has not come to terms with Native peoples, that there is unfinished business to attend to" The Canadian Encyclopedia describes as "a daring, experimental book involving a radical theology of love." Wiebe taught at Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana from 1963 to 1967, and he has travelled widely.
He is deeply committed to the literary culture of Canada and has shown a particular interest in the traditions and struggles of people in the Prairie provinces, both whites and Aboriginals.
Collected Stories, 1955–2010.Of This Earth: A Mennonite Boyhood in the Boreal ForestRiver of Stone: Fictions and MemoriesSweeter Than All the WorldFruits of the EarthPeace Shall Destroy ManyMy Lovely EnemyA Discovery of StrangersThe Blue Mountains of ChinaStolen : The Journey of a Cree Woman (with Yvonne Johnson)Playing Dead: A Contemplation Concerning the ArcticWar in the West: Voices of the North-West Rebellion (with Bob Beal)The Temptations of Big BearThe Scorched-Wood PeopleThe Mad Trapper.
In 2003 Wiebe was a member of the jury for the Giller Prize.