Mennonite Literary Voices: Past and Present

Mennonite Literary Voices: Past and Present evaluates Mennonite literature from its Anabaptist origins to the present. Chapter topics include the Russian Mennonite tradition, themes and issues in contemporary Mennonite writing, women writers, and literature and community.

Al Reimer was Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Winnipeg.

"...Al Reimer's 1993 monograph, Mennonite Literary Voices Past and Present, was the first monograph to explore the rise of poetry and fiction by writers of Mennonite descent during the 1980s. Reimer's study established a larger genealogy for Mennonite creative writing in North America, included a valuable survey of the 1980s Mennonite literary scene in Canada, and offered a thematic critique that emphasized the literature's engagement with the Mennonite community.

Reimer demonstrated that contemporary Mennonite authors were less interested in hagiographic accounts of Mennonite history and theology than were their few German-language predecessors, choosing instead to explore the community's shortcomings. Reimer insisted, however, that this burgeoning collection of writings were valuable not only as literature but also as necessary-even 'prophetic'-critiques of Mennonite identity in North America."

-Robert Zacharias
(University of Manitoba Press Recommended Reading List, 2016)