Discipline Category: Writing and Publishing

I am an author, illustrator, and sociologist inspired by the conditions of the world around me. I believe that art never exists as a standalone piece, but rather is informed by and reproduces the world around it. My work highlights the complexities of human interpretation of the world and how perspectives differ based on social conditions. As such, I strive to take big ideas and break them down into consumable forms of media to make them more accessible to a wider audience, such as working through the comic medium, which forces a concise breakdown of text, while adding a visual element which is both attention-drawing and a secondary text in itself.

One of two Wiebes featured in The Encyclopedia of Manitoba, Armin Wiebe is the author of four novels set in the fictional Mennonite community of Gutenthal: The Salvation of Yasch Siemens, Murder in Gutenthal, The Second Coming of Yeeat Shpanst, and Grandmother, Laughing.

His novel Tatsea, set in the Canadian subarctic of the 1760s, won the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award and the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction.

He has also published Armin's Shorts: Little Fictions, a selection of short stories written over more than thirty years.

Armin's stage play, The Moonlight Sonata of Beethoven Blatz, was produced by Theatre Projects Manitoba in 2011, and received enthusiastic reviews and sold out houses. A second production was mounted by Station Arts Centre in Rosthern, Saskatchewan in the summer of 2016.

His one act play, Wine and Little Breads, placed first in the Rhubarb Magazine-Winnipeg Mennonite Theatre One Act Play contest and was produced by Winnipeg Mennonite Theatre in November 2014. An expanded version of Wine and Little Breads was presented as a staged-reading at the 2018 Carol Shields Festival of New Works  and received an Honourable Mention in the 2019 Herman Voaden National Playwrighting Competition.

Wiebe's most recent play, The Recipe, premiered at Tom Hendry Warehouse Theatre in November 2024 in a co-production between Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre and Theatre Projects Manitoba.

Wiebe’s work is renowned for the musicality of its dialect and dialogue.

Armin’s readings have been enjoyed in many venues across Canada as well as CBC radio. He has shared stages with W.O. Mitchell, Carol Shields, David Bergen, Lorna Crozier, Miriam Toews, Sandra Birdsell, Di Brandt, Vicki Gabereau, Louise Penny, Rudy Wiebe and others.