Irma Voth

"Toews is an artist of escape; she always finds a way for her characters, trapped by circumstance, to liberate themselves." -Alexandra Schwartz, The New Yorker

A rare coming-of-age novel that blends dark truths with uplifting transformations from the internationally bestselling author of Women Talking Miriam Toews.

Jorge said he wasn't coming back until I learned how to be a better wife . . . But before he drove off he gave me a new flashlight with triple C batteries and I'm grateful for it because this is a very dark, pitch-black part of the world . . .

The life of nineteen-year-old Irma Voth, recently married and more recently deserted, is turned on its head when a film crew arrives. They have come to make a movie about the strict Mennonite community in which she and her family live. Against her family's wishes, Irma takes a job on set and glimpses the wider world and a path towards something that feels like freedom.

Irma Voth is a poignant and elegant exploration of one woman's difficult odyssey to discover her own potential-a path that leads her away from her close-knit community and into the wide and unknown world beyond.