Farley Mowat

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Farley Mowat

Farley McGill Mowat OC (born May 12, 1921 in Belleville , Ontario , Canada ; † May 6, 2014 in Port Hope , Ontario, Canada) was a Canadian writer whose books have been translated into more than 50 languages. Many of his most successful works are about memories of his childhood, his military service and his work as a naturalist. His great-great-uncle was the politician Oliver Mowat .

Early development

Farley Mowat was born in Belleville, Ontario in 1921 to Angus McGill Mowat and Helen Anne Thomson. His father was a librarian and was largely unsuccessful as a writer. Farley began writing while his family lived in Windsor from 1930–1933 . At the height of the Great Depression , the family then moved to Saskatoon , Saskatchewan .

As a boy, Mowat was fascinated by nature and animals. At the age of 13 he wrote for a newspaper and took care of birds that did not fly south in winter. In 1935, at the age of 15, he traveled to the Arctic for the first time with his great uncle Frank, an ornithologist.

During the Second World War , Mowat fought as an officer in a Canadian battalion against National Socialist Germany. On July 10, 1943, his unit was involved in the landing of Allied troops in Sicily .

First successes as a writer

After the war, Mowat returned to Canada and studied biology at the University of Toronto . During an excursion to the Arctic , he learned of the plight of the Inuit . He processed these experiences in 1952 in his first novel "People of the Deer", through which he became a literary celebrity. The work helped to improve the relationship between the Canadian government and the Inuit. In 1956 the award-winning children's book "Lost in the Barrens" followed.

Biologist, animal lover and international celebrity

After completing his studies, Mowat worked as a government biologist in the Arctic. At the time, fears that wolves could decimate the huge herds of caribou , the Canadian government considered killing the wolves. However, after months of observation, Mowat came to the conclusion that the wolves mainly fed on mice and only killed old or sick caribou. He wrote his findings down in 1963 in the book "Never Cry Wolf", which was distributed worldwide (German: Ein Sommer mit Wölfen , 1971). In 1983 Walt Disney filmed the book, the film was shown in Germany under the title When the Wolves Howl .

Mowat lived in Burgeo , Newfoundland, for eight years . There he wrote more books and campaigned against whaling . In 1981 he co-wrote a film with Peter Strauss and Richard Widmark . When he was refused entry to the United States on a promotional tour for his latest book in 1985, the case attracted worldwide attention.

Mowat kept birds and an alligator in his house . He was married to the author Claire Mowat (* 1933).

Achievements and honors

Mowat's engagement focused attention on the difficult situation of the Inuit and the grandiose nature of the north. His works have so far been translated into 52 languages ​​and more than 17 million books have been sold. He was a member of the international governing body of the environmental protection organization Sea Shepherd Conservation Society , whose flagship was first named Farley Mowat in his honor in 2002 ; after its sinking through Canada another ship was called that.

Mowat supported the Green Party of Canada. In 1970 he received the Vicky Metcalf Award ; In 1981 he was accepted as an officer in the Order of Canada .

criticism

Mowat has been criticized by biologists for his rather unconventional research methods.

There is evidence from John Goddard that Mowat's accounts are a mixture of observations, reports and wishful thinking. His claims to have spent two winters and one summer watching wolfs are also described as exaggerated; instead, he would only have spent 90 hours researching the wolves. After this criticism was published in the Canadian magazine Saturday Night , a heated discussion broke out about the realism of his reports.

Publications

Novels and short stories

  • The last husky. (first: Saturday Evening Post , 1955)
    • Arnuk , in Modern Tellers of the World: Canada. Translated from Walter E. Riedel. Horst Erdmann , Tübingen 1976 and others, pp. 233-251
  • The secret in the north. Hoch, 1961 ( Lost in the Barrens 1956)
  • The black manatee: smugglers off Newfoundland. Herder, 1967 ( The Black Joke 1962)
  • The Curse of the Viking Grave. (1966)
  • Translated by Elisabeth Schnack : The snow hiker. Ten stories. Unionsverlag , Zurich 1997, ISBN 3-293-20104-0 ( The Snow Walker 1975)
    • first as: Innuit. The courage of the Eskimo. (same translator) Albert Müller, Rüschlikon 1977; again in 1992

Experience reports

  • Companions of the reindeer. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1954 ( People of the Deer 1952)
  • The dog who wanted to be more. Europe, 1959 ( The Dog Who Wouldn't Be 1957)
  • Chronicle of the Desperate. The fall of the caribou Eskimos. VEB Brockhaus , Leipzig 1962 ( The Desperate People 1959)
  • Coppermine Journey. (1958)
  • Ordeal by Ice. (1960)
  • Wol and Wieps, two crafty thugs. Engelbert, 1973 ISBN 3-536-00360-5 ( Owls in the Family 1961)
  • A summer with wolves. Engelbert, 1971 ( Never Cry Wolf 1963); again as Rowohlt TB
  • West Viking: The Ancient Norse in Greenland and North America . 1965 ISBN 978-0771066924
  • Under the spell of the Arctic. The struggle for the pole. Swiss publishing house, Zurich 1975, ISBN 3-7263-6158-8 ( The Polar Passion 1967)
  • Canada North. 1967
  • This Rock Within the Sea: A Heritage Lost. 1968
  • The boat that didn't want to swim. Busse-Seewald , Herford 1978, ISBN 3-87120-805-1 ( The Boat Who Wouldn't Float 1969)
  • Siberia: a travelogue. Rüschlikon 1972, ISBN 3-275-00469-7 ( Sibir: My Discovery of Siberia 1970)
  • Moby Joe mustn't die. Albert Müller, 1973 ( A Whale for the Killing 1972; filmed in 1981 under the title Walmord with Peter Strauss and Richard Widmark )
  • Tundra. (1973)
  • Canada North Now: The Great Betrayal. (1976)
  • And No Birds Sang. (1979)
  • Virunga. (1987)
  • The End of the Track: The Story of the Dian Fossey and Mountain Gorillas in Africa. Schweizer Verlags-Haus, 1988 ISBN 3-7263-6569-9 ( Woman in the mists: The Story of Dian Fossey and the mountain gorillas of Africa 1989)
  • The fall of Noah's ark. On the suffering of animals among people. Rowohlt, 1987 ISBN 3498042971 ( Sea of ​​Slaughter 1984).
  • Lost Paths: The Fate of an Inuit Family. Goldmann, 2002 ISBN 3-442-71176-2 ( Walking the Land 2000)

Film adaptations

Web links

Commons : Farley Mowat  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ online reader
  2. ↑ And No Birds Sang. P. 7.
  3. ↑ Farley Mowat in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  4. ^ Farley Mowat ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia . September 19, 2019 .; see. Farley Mowat (ship, 1957) and Farley Mowat (ship, 1992)
  5. ↑ econet ( Memento from September 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ Short biography of Farley Mowat in the web archive with special appreciation of the discussion about the authenticity of his reports and his position as a Canadian celebrity.
personal data
SURNAME Mowat, Farley
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mowat, Farley McGill (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian writer
DATE OF BIRTH May 12, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Belleville , Ontario , Canada
DATE OF DEATH May 6, 2014
Place of death Port Hope , Ontario , Canada