Miriam Toews

**READ THE BOOK BEFORE YOU WATCH THE MAJOR FILM STARRING CLAIRE FOY, JESSIE BUCKLEY, ROONEY MARA AND BEN WHISHAW** 'Don't miss this.' MARGARET ATWOOD 'Beautiful. . . a novel for the times.' LISA McINERNEY 'Tender, enraging and brimming with a bitter wit.' The Times 'An astonishment, a volcano of a novel.' LAUREN GROFF In a remote Mennonite colony, over a hundred girls and women were knocked unconscious and violated-by what many thought were ghosts or demons-as punishment for their sins. Their accounts were chalked up to 'wild female imagination.' Women Talking is an imagined response to these real events. When the women learn that they were in fact drugged and attacked by men in their community, they hold a secret meeting in a hayloft. They have two days to make a plan before the rapists are bailed out and brought home: will they dare to escape? 'Profound, affecting stuff.' Sunday Telegraph 'Brave and thoughtful.' Observer

Women Talking

Don't miss this one! This amazing, sad, shocking, but touching novel, based on a real-life event, could be right out of The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood, TwitterBetween 2005 and 2009, in a remote religious Mennonite colony, over a hundred girls and women were knocked unconscious and raped, often repeatedly, by what many thought were ghosts or demons, as a punishment for their sins. As the women tentatively began to share the details of the attacks-waking up sore and bleeding and not understanding why-their stories were chalked up to 'wild female imagination.'Women Talking is an imagined response to these real events. Eight women, all illiterate, without any knowledge of the world outside their colony and unable even to speak the language of the country they live in, meet secretly in a hayloft with the intention of making a decision about how to protect themselves and their daughters from future harm. They have two days to make a plan, while the men of the colony are away in the city attempting to raise enough money to bail out the rapists (not ghosts as it turns out but local men) and bring them home.How should we live? How should we love? How should we treat one another? How should we organise our societies? These are questions the women in Women Talking ask one another-and Miriam Toews makes them the questions we must all ask ourselves.