Rudy Wiebe will receive the 2019  Canadian Mennonite University PAX award on Thursday, April 4, 2019, at Spring at CMU, an annual fundraiser in support of the university.

According to CMU's release, CMU President Dr. Cheryl Pauls will present the award to Wiebe.

The PAX Award was created to honour people who lead exemplary lives of service, leadership, and reconciliation in church and society.

Wiebe has published 33 books and is best known for his novels that focus on faith, life on the Canadian prairies and the voices of Canada's Indigenous people. These books have led him to be the recipient of the Governor General's Award for Fiction.

Wiebe is delighted and honoured to receive the award, to be placed in the company of previous recipients like Jean Vanier and Art DeFehr.

His very first novel, titled Peace Shall Destroy Many, caused controversy in the Mennonite community back when it was published in 1962 because of its uncomfortably honest insider perspective on the community.

Wiebe was born in 1934 on his family's farm near Fairholme, SK.

He studied at the University of Alberta and the University of Tubingen in West Germany. He completed his MA in creative writing in 1960. He then studied and taught at Mennonite Brethren Bible College and worked as editor of the Mennonite Brethren Herald in Winnipeg. Wiebe also taught at Goshen College in Indiana and then to the University of Alberta where he is currently Professor Emeritus.

Wiebe has also lectured and given readings internationally, taught literature and creative writing for 30 years, and mentored now successful writers. He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2000.

More information for Spring CMU can be found on their website.