Andrew Unger (born November 8, 1979) is a Canadian writer from
Steinbach, Manitoba
Steinbach () ( Plautdietsch: /ˈʃte̞nbah/ or /ˈʃte̞nbax/) is a city located about south-east of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Steinbach is the third-largest city in Manitoba, with a population of 17,806, and the largest community in the E ...
, best known as the author and founder of the
Mennonite
Mennonites are groups of Anabaptist Christian church communities of denominations. The name is derived from the founder of the movement, Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings about Reformed Christianity during the Ra ...
satire
Satire is a genre of the visual arts, visual, literature, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently Nonfiction, non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ...
website
The Daily Bonnet
''The Daily Bonnet'' is a satirical Mennonite website. It was created by Andrew Unger and launched in May 2016. It features news stories and editorials, with the structure of conventional newspapers, but whose content is contorted to make humor ...
(along with the collection ''The Best of the Bonnet'') and for the novel ''Once Removed''.
Career
Before starting the Daily Bonnet, Unger was a contributor to numerous non-fiction publications including '' Geez'', '' CBC.ca'', and ''
Ballast
Ballast is material that is used to provide stability to a vehicle or structure. Ballast, other than cargo, may be placed in a vehicle, often a ship or the gondola of a balloon or airship, to provide stability. A compartment within a boat, ship, ...
'', sometimes publishing under the
pen name
A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, 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 na ...
Andrew J. Bergman. Early in his career, he also wrote and published fiction and poetry, as well as working as a
ghostwriter
A ghostwriter is hired to write literary or journalistic works, speeches, or other texts that are officially credited to another person as the author. Celebrities, executives, participants in timely news stories, and political leaders ofte ...
for
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
-based Kevin Anderson & Associates.
In 2016 Unger founded 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
The Legislature of Manitoba is the legislature of the province of Manitoba, Canada. Today, the legislature is made of two elements: the King of Canada in Right of Manitoba, represented by the Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba, and the unicameral ...
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 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 parliament. ...
.
In 2020 Unger's novel ''Once Removed'' was released by
Turnstone Press
Turnstone Press is a Canadian literary publisher founded in 1976 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the oldest in Manitoba and among the most respected independent publishers in Canada.
Turnstone was founded in 1976 by academics David Arnason, John Beaver, ...
. 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 The Margaret McWilliams Awards are an annual literary award in Manitoba, Canada presented by the Manitoba Historical Society. The society awards prizes in the categories of Scholarly History Book, Popular History Book, and Local History Book. Inaugu ...
.
In late 2021, Unger released a collection of Daily Bonnet articles called ''The Best of the Bonnet'', also published by Turnstone Press.
Unger cites
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, ...
,
Sinclair Lewis
Harry Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an American writer and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States (and the first from the Americas) to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, which wa ...
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder (; ; born Samuel Wilder; June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) was an Austrian-American filmmaker. His career in Hollywood spanned five decades, and he is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Classic Holl ...
, and
Miriam Toews
Miriam Toews (; born 1964) is a Canadian writer and author of nine books, including '' A Complicated Kindness'' (2004), ''All My Puny Sorrows'' (2014), and '' Women Talking'' (2018). She has won a number of literary prizes including the Governor ...
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
Mennonite
Mennonites are groups of Anabaptist Christian church communities of denominations. The name is derived from the founder of the movement, Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings about Reformed Christianity during the Ra ...
minister father and book-keeper mother, Unger was born in Winnipeg in 1979 and lived in Steinbach, Brandon and
Calgary
Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, maki ...
as a child before returning to Steinbach as an adult. From his father's side, he is a direct descendant of
Kleine Gemeinde Kleine Gemeinde is a Mennonite denomination founded in 1812 by Klaas Reimer in the Russian Empire. The current group primarily consists of Plautdietsch-speaking Russian Mennonites in Belize, Mexico and Bolivia, as well as a small presence in Canada ...
founder
Klaas Reimer Klaas Reimer (1770–1837) was the founder of the Kleine Gemeinde, a Mennonite denomination that still exists in Latin America, but underwent radical changes in Canada where it is now called the Evangelical Mennonite Conference. Ethnic Mennonite rem ...
, while his maternal grandfather fled to Canada from the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
as a refugee in the 1920s.
As a child he turned to satire, drawing
political cartoons
A political cartoon, a form of editorial cartoon, is a cartoon graphic with caricatures of public figures, expressing the artist's opinion. An artist who writes and draws such images is known as an editorial cartoonist. They typically combine ...
, particularly of Canadian Prime Minister
Brian Mulroney
Martin Brian Mulroney ( ; born March 20, 1939) is 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 studied political ...
. Unger attended
Providence University College
Providence University College and Theological Seminary is an interdenominational Evangelical Christian university college and theological seminary located approximately south-east of Winnipeg in Otterburne, Manitoba.
History
The Winnip ...
in the late 1990s and holds degrees from the
University of Manitoba
The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a Canadian public research university in the province of Manitoba.Steinbach Regional Secondary School since 2005.
Unger is married to Erin Koop Unger, author of Mennotoba.
In 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Unger successfully advocated for the Manitoba government to create vaccine stickers in the
Russian Mennonite
The Russian Mennonites (german: Russlandmennoniten it. "Russia Mennonites", i.e., Mennonites of or from the Russian Empire occasionally Ukrainian Mennonites) are a group of Mennonites who are descendants of Dutch Anabaptists who settled for a ...