Miriam Toews (/ˈteɪvz/ ⓘ; born 1964) OM is a Canadian writer and author of nine books, including A Complicated Kindness (2004), All My Puny Sorrows (2014), and Women Talking (2018).

Toews had a leading role in the feature film Silent Light, written and directed by Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas, and winner of the 2007 Cannes Jury Prize, an experience that informed her fifth novel, Irma Voth (2011).

Toews has written for CBC's WireTap, Canadian Geographic, Geist, The Guardian, The New York Times Magazine, Intelligent Life, and Saturday Night.

[10] She is the author of The X Letters, a series of personal dispatches addressed to the father of her son, which were featured on This American Life in an episode about missing parents.

The narrator is Nomi Nickel, a curious, defiant, sardonic sixteen-year-old who dreams of hanging out with Lou Reed in the 'real' East Village of New York City.

[15][16] A Complicated Kindness was highly acclaimed nationally and internationally, with the character of Nomi Nickel invoking comparisons to J. D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield.

[17][18][19] It won the 2004 Governor General's Award for Fiction, described by the jury as "an unforgettable coming-of-age story... melancholic and hopeful, as beautifully complicated as life itself.

[23] The Flying Troutmans (2008) is a road-trip novel narrated by 28-year-old Hattie, who takes charge of her teenage niece and nephew after her sister Min is admitted to a psychiatric ward.

When her father's violence escalates and the tragedy that has haunted her family begins to surface, Irma receives the blessing of her mother to flee the encampment, and to take her two younger sisters with her, one of whom is an infant.

[26][27][28] Toews has said that Irma Voth was inspired in part by her experience in playing a lead role in Silent Light, the 2007 film written and directed by Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas.

Reygadas invited Toews to do a screen test for the role of Esther, a conservative Mennonite wife, after reading her third novel, A Complicated Kindness, and seeing her author photo on the back flap of the book.

"[31] All My Puny Sorrows (2014) recounts the tumultuous relationship of the Von Riesen sisters, Elfrieda and Yolandi, the only children of an intellectual, free-spirited family from a conservative Mennonite community.

Whereas Elfrieda is a gifted, beautiful, happily married, and much celebrated concert pianist, Yolandi feels like a failure, with a floundering writing career and teenage children from separate fathers.

[50] The novel's French translation, Pauvres petits chagrins, was selected for the 2019 edition of Quebec's Le Combat des livres, where it was defended by writer Deni Ellis Béchard.

[52] In a note at the start of Women Talking (2018), Toews describes the novel as "a reaction through fiction" to the true-life events that took place between 2005 and 2009 on the Manitoba Colony, a remote Mennonite community in Bolivia.

Eventually it was discovered that a group of colony men had been spraying an animal anesthetic into neighboring houses at night, rendering everyone unconscious, and raping the women (infants, elderly, and relatives included).

He performs his role of minute taker at the request of Ona Friesen, the object of his unrequited love and his childhood friend, who is one of the eight women in the hayloft.

[59] A film adaptation of the book, directed by Sarah Polley, and produced by and featuring Frances McDormand, Rooney Mara, and Claire Foy, was released in late 2022.

Recently expelled from school, Swiv helps her grandmother with bathing and chores, accompanies her around the city, and eventually travels with her to Fresno, California to meet members of their extended family.

In exchange, Swiv learns about what it means to survive through the ups and downs of life, and of her grandmother's story of despair, betrayal, stolen agency, and joy.