Preview Mode Links will not work in preview mode

Kobo in Conversation

In-depth conversations with authors—about how and why they write, the books and authors they admire, and so much more. Plus, occasional takes on what's going on in the business of books, and year-end roundups of reading recommendations from the Kobo staff.
  1. All Episodes
  2. Miriam Toews on her new memoir, and the surprising truth of good comedy

Miriam Toews on her new memoir, and the surprising truth of good comedy

Dec 10, 2025

Michael Tamblyn spoke with Miriam Toews, author of many novels including A Complicated Kindness, All My Puny Sorrows, and Women Talking, to name just a few. Her latest book is a memoir called, A Truce That Is Not Peace. Spurred by the question “why do you write?”, posed by a distressingly persistent literary festival organizer, it’s a work of nonfiction that delves into the author’s feelings around the deaths by suicide of both her father and her sister.

Miriam Toews on her new memoir, and the surprising truth of good comedy