WINNER OF THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD FOR FICTION

A GLOBE AND MAIL, CBC BOOKS, APPLE BOOKS, AND NOW TORONTO BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

In the tradition of The Poisonwood Bible and State of Wonder, a novel set in the rainforest of Ecuador about five women left behind when their missionary husbands are killed. Based on the shocking real-life events

In 1956, a small group of evangelical Christian missionaries and their families journeyed to the rainforest in Ecuador intending to convert the Waorani, a people who had never had contact with the outside world. The plan was known as Operation Auca. After spending days dropping gifts from an aircraft, the five men in the party rashly entered the “intangible zone.” They were all killed, leaving their wives and children to fend for themselves.

Five Wives is the fictionalized account of the real-life women who were left behind, and their struggles – with grief, with doubt, and with each other – as they continued to pursue their evangelical mission in the face of the explosion of fame that followed their husbands’ deaths.

Five Wives is a riveting, often wrenching story of evangelism and its legacy, teeming with atmosphere and compelling characters and rich in emotional impact.

JOAN THOMAS is the author of five novels, most recently Five Wives, which won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction. Her first novel, Reading by Lightning, won the Commonwealth Prize for Best First Book (Canada and the Caribbean) and the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, and was nominated for four other awards, including the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The bestseller Curiosity was named a Quill & Quire Book of the Year and was nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, as well as the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The Opening Sky won the McNally Robinson Prize for Book of the Year and was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction. A recipient of the Writers’ Trust of Canada Engel Findley Award, Joan Thomas lives in Winnipeg.

Joan Thomas' profile page

"Thomas’s blend of fact and fiction is effective, and her vivid descriptions evoke a distant past, giving readers a glimpse into a bygone era and the patriarchal structures at play.

<em>Literary Review of Canada</em>

“Five Wives is an engrossing, thoughtful read, and a fresh testament to Thomas’s narrative powers — and her ability to locate a human pulse under the often-deafening drumbeats of religious and cultural tradition.”

Winnipeg Free Press

“Brilliant, eloquent, curious, far-seeing . . . Thomas is a beautiful writer. . . . [Her] remarkable feat of imagination puts her in [Alice] Munro’s league.”

The Globe and Mail

“To take a true, shocking story and tell it from the inside, without judgment or theatrics but with an unwavering respect for the facts and a generosity of imagination that is the hallmark great storytelling, is no small feat. Thomas has more than risen to the challenge. This is a brave, important, utterly absorbing novel.”

Barbara Gowdy, author of <em>Little Sister</em>

“Joan Thomas eviscerates the myth of the benevolent missionary in this fictionalized account of how evangelicals descended on the Waorani, an Ecuadorean Indigenous community, devastating their culture and lives.”

NOW Magazine

“This is a riveting, gut wrenching piece of true fiction (if there is such a thing), one that I read with amazement . . . a brave, totally absorbing book.” 

<em>The Owen Sound Sun-Times</em>

“Joan Thomas is like an explorer who has gone out to discover the missionary tribe, and then returned as witness to its fallibility. Thomas does not preach, nor does she judge. What amazes most is how, through a deft sleight of hand and deep compassion, the author turns the idea of salvation upside down and exposes the invader. A beauty of a story.”

David Bergen, author of <em>The Stranger</em>

“Magnificent . . . . Five Wives is riveting, from start to finish. The season’s must-read for historical fiction fans.” 

Toronto Star

“What a wonderful book! Joan Thomas takes us deep into Operation Auca and into the wild jungle of her characters’ hearts. This gorgeous, nuanced retelling offers up historical events in a new light and forces us to ask difficult and timely questions about colonialism, indigeneity, and faith.”

Alison Pick, author of <em>Strangers with the Same Dream</em>