Women Talking

"From 2005 to 2009, Mennonite women and girls in rural Bolivia were being knocked unconscious with a chemical used to anaesthetize animals and raped in the night by men in their community. Miriam Toews takes that horrific true story and imagines what happened next. As the title suggests: The women of the colony gather in a hayloft and talk about their options. Do they stay and do nothing? Do they stay and fight? Do they leave? The emotional journey the women go on to make their decision is sprawling. They discuss God, theology and forgiveness. They talk about their hopes and imagine a future for themselves outside of the only life they’ve ever known. Their conversations are intimate yet universal, philosophical yet surprisingly funny. This is the book I spent all year telling people to read. And after you do, go look up what happened to the women in real life."

"I admired as intellectually serious, morally challenging and formally interesting without being gimmicky; it is also spare of language yet shocking of stakes."