Manitoba's literary landscape has brought you Margaret Laurence's Morag
Gunn, Adele Wiseman's Hoda, Sandra Birdsell's Minnie Pullman and
Carol Shields's Daisy Goodwill. Now, here comes Oata Siemens
in an operatic political cartoon novel of the struggle for Canada's soul.

When the Prime Minister declares that it's a dark day for Canada, the
citizens of Gutenthal, who believe their country's fate is more important than
baseball, set out to save the nation from a storm of unwanted referendum
questions and foreign take-overs. Led by Oata Siemens, armed only with a
carpenter's pencil and a farmers' union notebook, The Second Coming of
Yeeat Shpanst serves up the essence of living in Canada during the
tumultuous time after the death of the Meech Lake Accord.

In The Second Coming of Yeeat Shpanst, Armin Wiebe returns to Gutenthal, the
fictional town of previous novels, a community that comes with its own extensive
family tree, phrase book, and 'Beetfield Chorus'. This 'Gutenthal Galaxy' is
comprised of some of the more colourful creations to have bounded across
Canadian pages in a while.... It is a playful book, and serious. And it should be
required reading for a legion of our elected representatives.
                --Rita Donovan, author of Dark Jewels writing in Books in Canada
 

I opened it up--and that was it, I couldn't close it till I finished paddling across the
lexicon....I loved it, absolutely loved it, from the 'Greek' chorus in the Beet Fields
to the magic realism imagery to the artist's process descriptions to the critique of
the Canadian political sell-out. Oata was great. I wish I could do a male character
that well.

--Dorothy Friesen, an avid reader in Chicago, author of Stormy Ties

--William Robertson, Saskatoon Star Phoenix

--Dallas Wiebe, author of Our Asian Journey, writing in Mennonite Life