By Jim Coggins

"ONE OF the loveliest things that human beings do is tell stories to each other," says Rudy Wiebe.

Wiebe, one of Canada's premiere novelists, is headlining the second annual 'Many Strands: Celebrating the Art of Storytelling' conference in Abbotsford, BC, May 29 - 30. The conference is billed as a writers' conference rather than a Christian conference, but the organizers and presenters are generally Christians and approach their work from a Christian perspective.

It is an approach that Wiebe is comfortable with. As a practising Christian, he says he is "following in the steps of one of the best storytellers who ever lived." He adds, "The stories I write are written by a Christian -- a Jesus follower should have a Christian response to events -- but not everything we write is related to the church."

Many of the things Jesus talked about speak to our common humanity, says Wiebe. "We think every Christian story should have some element of salvation, but most of Jesus' stories don't . . . Not every story has to end happily if you want to be believable." He adds, "The Christian story has not ended happily yet. We are still hoping."

A case in point is Wiebe's novel, A Discovery of Strangers, which he describes as "a profoundly Christian story" even though it is the pagan Dene who act in a more humane, caring and Christian way than the Christian English sailors who encounter them.

Wiebe says it is ironic and somewhat disappointing that his novels have been readily accepted in secular universities and literary circles but have often been less warmly received in Christian circles. He suggests his writings have been "too indefinite for some Christian readers," since they sometimes deal with "postmodern ambiguity."

Wiebe will make two presentations at the Many Strands conference. On Friday evening, he will present 'Fifty Years of Stories,' a selection of excerpts from his writings over the years; and on Saturday evening, he will give a lecture on 'Where the Truth Lies: Exploring the Nature of Fact and Fiction.'

Wiebe published his first short story in 1956, and his first novel, Peace Shall Destroy Many, in 1962. That novel still sells between 1,000 and 1,500 copies a year, with many copies going to students studying Canadian literature in Christian schools. Ironically, it was that novel which helped propel Wiebe out of church journalism and into fiction writing.

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Wiebe had been hired as the first editor of the Mennonite Brethren Herald, a magazine published by the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches. The English-language periodical was a bit of an innovation for a denomination that had largely used German up until that point.

When dissatisfaction arose in the denomination over Wiebe's approach to journalism, as well as over his novel, he resigned. Looking back, it was a blessing in disguise. Shortly afterward, Goshen College, a Mennonite postsecondary institution in Indiana, invited Wiebe to come and teach English. There, Wiebe said, "I met friends and Christian thinkers who changed my conception of what the world and Christianity are about."

After earning his doctorate, Wiebe became a professor of English at the University of Alberta in Edmonton in 1967. There he found "a lot more flexibility" to shape his time. As a result, he produced nine novels, four collections of short stories and other books and articles. He won the Governor General's Award for Fiction for The Temptations of Big Bear in 1983 and A Discovery of Strangers in 1994.

Several of Wiebe's books deal with his Mennonite heritage, which combines both ethnicity and religion. That heritage can result in "a very controlled world dominated by a particular doctrine," he suggests.

However, just as Jewish ethno-religious communities have produced writers such as Mordecai Richler and Philip Roth, so Mennonite communities in Canada have produced successful writers out of proportion to their numbers. "You can't reject your ethnic past," says Wiebe, "but you can use it." However, unlike some other "Mennonite writers," Wiebe has remained "a practising Christian."

Wiebe has not written only about Mennonites, however. Several of his books focus on Native peoples. "I try not to write the same book twice," says Wiebe. "In every book, I try to write something different in a different way."

As for his lecture on 'Where the Truth Lies,' Wiebe says the title has a deliberate double meaning. People are always asking of his fiction, "Is it true?" when what they really mean, "Is it factual? Did it happen in time?"

"Truth doesn't have to have much to do with fact at all," says Wiebe, but he also notes that, when we label something non-fiction, "people assume it is all true -- and that is problematic." Three people will often remember the same event differently, and "all language is image, a sound that only represents something else."

For that reason, Wiebe "doesn't necessarily want to be clear" in his writing but rather to present "ambiguity and meaning" -- which allows the reader "to participate in the shaping of the story." That, says Wiebe, "is what imaginative writing is all about."

May 14/2009