Sandra Birdsell -- Katya/ The Russlander

The first novel to tell the story of Russlander Mennonites from a woman's point of view, The Russlander (called Katya in the United States version of the book) by Sandra Birdsell won several awards in Canada: The Saskatchewan Book Award for fiction, and the Saskatchewan Book of the Year Award, the Regina Book Award. It was also a finalist for the Giller Prize, Canada's largest prize for fiction. How do you write a "survivor" story in order to capture the humanity of those who have endured the unendurable? In this interview, Sandra Birdsell shares her thoughts as she created this haunting novel.

Sandra Birdsell, born in Manitoba to a Mennonite mother and Metis father, began as a writer of short fiction. Her first two volumes of stories, Night Travellers and Ladies of the House were reissued in 1987 as Agassiz Stories (for this American audience, Agassiz is the name of a town.) Birdsell's first novel, The Missing Child (1989), won the W. H. Smith/ Books in Canada First Novel Award. Her second novel, The Chrome Suite (1992) and her third collection of short fiction, The Two-Headed Calf (1997), were both short-listed for the Governor General's Award for fiction.

Her most recent novels are Children of the Day (2005), based loosely on her family growing-up years as one of 11 children in a mixed marriage between a French-speaking Cree Metis man and a Russlander Mennonite woman, and Waiting for Joe (2010) about a couple who is fleeing the current economic crisis in a stolen motor home. Waiting for Joe won the Saskatchewan Best Book of the Year Award and was a Finalist for the Governor General's Award for Fiction.

The Structure of Katya (The Russlander)

The novel begins with a newspaper clipping, detailing the massacre on the estate Privol'noye which Katya will escape. We know from the beginning that many of the characters we are reading about will be killed in this way. The reader has to absorb this information before reading the novel, which begins seven years before the massacre.

The novel is divided into three sections. The first section takes us deeply into the details of life on a wealthy Russian Mennonite estate and acquaints us with the characters' intimate lives and the social structure in which they live. The massacre occurs at the very end of the second section. The third section tells of the struggle of survivors to continue to survive and finally to emigrate. The story of the Russlander is also the story of Birdsell's mother's people.