They were called “ghost rapes.” You might remember them. About a decade ago, an isolated sect of Mennonites in Bolivia made headlines around the world when a group of men were convicted of secretly sedating then raping women and girls in their community as young as 9 years old.
“These Mennonite communities, these colonies, are self policed. This was one of the few, few times that the cops were called in, and from what I understand it was basically to protect the men from revenge attacks, etc. So my book is an imagined response to these attacks and the questions that have and the choices that they’re faced with.”
These apparently simple choices give plenty of scope for the women to explore some fundamental issues that concern us all: What is freedom? What is forgiveness? What does it mean to be a good Mennonite — or, broadly, to live by your principles?Some who received advance copies, including Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, have placed it firmly in the camp of feminist books that will become part of a canon that questions the patriarchy.,” enthused Atwood on Twitter.
“Especially the older women, they don’t want to think of themselves as revolutionaries,” says Toews. “To them that means armed, violent and sinful.”