Andrew Unger (born November 8, 1979) is a Canadian novelist and satirist. He is the author of the satirical news website The Unger Review (formerly The Daily Bonnet), as well as the novel '' Once Removed'' and the collection ''The Best of the Bonnet''.

Career

Since 2010, Unger has been a contributor to numerous publications including ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in Western Canada, western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on week ...

'', '' Geez'', '' CBC.ca'', and '' Ballast''. Early in his career, he also wrote and published fiction and poetry, sometimes publishing under the

pen name A pen name or nom-de-plume is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen name may be used to make the author's na ...

Andrew J. Bergman, as well as working as a

ghostwriter A ghostwriter is a person hired to write literary or journalistic works, speeches, or other texts that are credited to another person as the author. Celebrities, executives, participants in timely news stories, and political leaders often h ...

for New York-based Kevin Anderson & Associates. In 2016 Unger founded the

Mennonite Mennonites are a group of Anabaptism, Anabaptist Christianity, Christian communities tracing their roots to the epoch of the Radical Reformation. The name ''Mennonites'' is derived from the cleric Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland, part of ...

satirical news website The Daily Bonnet and, along with his wife Erin Koop Unger, the non-satirical website Mennotoba in 2017. Since 2016, Unger has written more than two thousand Daily Bonnet articles. The website has been visited millions of times each year and has been cited in debate in the Manitoba Legislature and used as an example of Mennonite

humour Humour (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humorism, humoral medicine of the ancient Gre ...

in the Canadian

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

. In 2020 Unger's novel ''Once Removed'' was released by Turnstone Press. The novel, which tells the story of a struggling writer trying to preserve his town's fading history, won the 2021 Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book and was a finalist for the 2020 Margaret McWilliams Award. In late 2021, Unger released a collection of Daily Bonnet articles called ''The Best of the Bonnet'', also published by Turnstone Press. In 2023, Unger changed the name of The Daily Bonnet to The Unger Review, while maintaining The Daily Bonnet as a section of the website.

Writing style

Unger cites

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish writer, essayist, satirist, and Anglican cleric. In 1713, he became the Dean (Christianity), dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, and was given the sobriquet "Dean Swi ...

Sinclair Lewis Harry Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930 Nobel Prize in Literature, 1930, he became the first author from the United States (and the first from the America ...

, Armin Wiebe,

Billy Wilder Billy Wilder (; ; born Samuel Wilder; June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) was an American filmmaker and screenwriter. His career in Hollywood (film industry), Hollywood spanned five decades, and he is regarded as one of the most brilliant and ver ...

, and Miriam Toews among his writing influences. His work has been described as Horatian satire by scholar Nathan Dueck and compared to Armin Wiebe and Arnold Dyck by scholar Robert Zacharias.

Personal

The son of a

minister father and book-keeper mother, Unger was born in Winnipeg in 1979 and lived in Steinbach, Brandon and

Calgary Calgary () is a major city in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in C ...

as a child before returning to Steinbach as an adult. From his father's side, he is a direct descendant of Kleine Gemeinde founder Klaas Reimer, while his maternal grandfather fled to Canada from the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

as a refugee in the 1920s. As a child he turned to satire, drawing political cartoons, particularly of Canadian Prime Minister

Brian Mulroney Martin Brian Mulroney (March 20, 1939 – February 29, 2024) was a Canadian lawyer, businessman, and politician who served as the 18th prime minister of Canada from 1984 to 1993. Born in the eastern Quebec city of Baie-Comeau, Mulroney studi ...

. Unger attended Providence University College in the late 1990s and holds degrees from the

University of Manitoba The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a public research university in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Founded in 1877, it is the first university of Western Canada. Both by total student enrolment and campus area, the University of ...

. He has taught English Language Arts, including satire and creative writing, at Steinbach Regional Secondary School since 2005. Unger lives in Steinbach, Manitoba and is married to author Erin Koop Unger. In 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Unger successfully advocated for the Manitoba government to create vaccine stickers in the

dialect of Plautdietsch. In 2024, Unger initiated a fundraiser to place an historic plaque in front of author Miriam Toews's former home in Steinbach.

References

External links

*
Unger Review site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Unger, Andrew 1979 births Canadian male novelists Canadian Mennonites Canadian satirical novelists Kleine Gemeinde Living people Manitoba Book Awards winners Mennonite writers Mennonite humorists Writers from Winnipeg Writers from Calgary Writers from Steinbach, Manitoba Writers from Brandon, Manitoba University of Manitoba alumni 21st-century Canadian novelists Novelists from Alberta Novelists from Manitoba