Mordecai Richler

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Mordecai Richler

Mordecai Richler , CC (born January 27, 1931 in Montreal ; † July 3, 2001 in Montreal ) was a Canadian writer , screenwriter and English-language essayist . During his lifetime he was one of the most famous Canadian writers worldwide. In Canada itself, he was also a not undisputed figure in public life because of his statements on Canadian politics.

Richler has been nominated several times for the Canadian Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize .

Life

Richler came from a Jewish family and was the son of a scrap dealer. He later immortalized the neighborhood in which he grew up in Montreal in several of his novels. He began studying English at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University ), but de- registered before graduation. At the age of 19, Richler moved to Paris , where he lived for a few years before moving to London . In 1972 he returned to Montreal, but continued to regularly spend the winter months in London.

With his fourth novel, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz , published in 1959 (under the title Die Lehrjahre des Duddy Kravitz , first published in German translation in February 2007), Richler made his breakthrough as a writer. Like many of his subsequent novels, this book dealt with the life of the Jewish community in the area where Richler himself grew up in the 1940s and 1950s. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz was founded in 1974 by Ted Kotcheff filmed ; the script was written by Richler and Lionel Chetwynd and the film gave Richard Dreyfuss his first lead role.

Throughout his writing career, Richler has also been a regular contributor to journalistic commentaries, including for Look and The New Yorker . In his later years, Richler also served as a columnist for the National Post in Toronto and The Gazette in Montreal. In his columns and journalistic articles, Richler showed himself to be a polemical critic of the francophone separatist movement and the language legislation it enforced in Québec . A few months before his death, Richler was awarded the "Companion of the Order of Canada " award.

Richler's works are peppered with humor and satire and have received numerous awards, including the Commonwealth Writers Prize; His works have also been nominated several times for the Booker Prize . From Richler's children's book Jacob Two-Two in Danger (original title Jacob Two-Two meets the Hooded Fang ; also: Jacob Two-Two vs. the Hooded Fang ), an animated series of the same name was created, among other things , which was broadcast in Germany by ARD . Die Zeit author Max Küng presented himself to German critics as an enthusiastic reader of Richler's works.

Richler had five children with his wife, Florence. He is buried in the Mont-Royal cemetery in Montreal.

Awards

  • 1969 Governor General's Award for Fiction for Cocksure and Hunting Tigers Under Glass
  • 1971 Booker Prize nomination for St. Urbain's Horseman ( The Dream of Jakob Hersch )
  • 1972 Governor General's Award for St. Urbain's Horseman ( Der Traum des Jakob Hersch )
  • 1974 Screenwriters Guild of America: Award for Best Comedy for the screenplay for The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
  • 1976 Canadian Library Association: "The Children's Book of the Year," Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang .
  • 1976 Ruth Schwartz Children's Book Prize for Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang
  • 1990 Commonwealth Writers Prize
  • 1990 Booker Prize . Nomination for Solomon Gursky was here
  • 1995 Mr. Christie's Book Award (for best English-language book, ages 8 to 11) for Jacob Two-Two's First Spy Case
  • 1997 Scotiabank Giller Prize for Barney's version
  • 1998 Canadian Booksellers Association: "Author of the Year"
  • 1998 Stephen Leacock Prize, humor for Barney's version
  • 1998 Commonwealth Writers Prize, Best Book from Canada and the Caribbean, for Barney's Version
  • 2000 Honorary Doctorate , McGill University , Montreal
  • 2001 Companion of the Order of Canada

Works

Novels

  • 1954 The Acrobats (1955 again as Wicked We Love )
    • The acrobats, German v. Annemarie Horschitz-Horst, Kindler, Munich 1955
  • 1955 Son of a Smaller Hero
    • Son of a lesser hero, German v. Paul Baudisch. Kindler, Munich 1963
  • 1957 A Choice of Enemies
    • The ground no longer supports me Paul Baudisch, Kindler, Munich 1958
  • 1959 The Apprenticeship Of Duddy Kravitz
    • The apprenticeship years of Duddy Kravitz, dt. Silvia Morawetz, Liebeskind, Munich 2007 ISBN 978-3-935890-42-7
  • 1963 The Incomparable Atuk
  • 1968 Cocksure
  • 1969 The Street
  • 1971 St. Urbain's Horseman
  • 1980 Joshua Then and Now
  • 1989 Solomon Gursky Was Here
    • Solomon Gursky was here, German v. Hartmut Zahn, Carina von Enzenberg. Hanser, Munich 1992 ISBN 978-3-935890-77-9
  • 1997 Barney's version

Youth books

  • 1975 Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang ; also: Jacob Two-Two vs. the hooded catch
  • 1987 Jacob Two-Two and the Dinosaur
    • Jacob Zweizwei and the dinosaur; also as: Jacob Two-Two und der Dinosaurier, dt. v. Steffen Buchert, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005 ISBN 3-596-80618-6
  • 1995 Jacob Two-Two's First Spy Case
    • A present for Jacob Zweizwei, German v. Reinhard Kaiser, Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 1992 ISBN 3-8218-3628-8

Scripts

  • 1956: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Presents, episode: The Man Who Wouldn't Escape (with Stanley Mann) (TV series)
  • 1957: Insomnia Is Good for You (with Lewis Greifer)
  • 1958: Armchair Theater, episode: Paid in Full (TV series)
  • 1958: Armchair Theater, episode: The House of Bernarda Alba (TV series)
  • 1959: Armchair Theater, episode: The Trouble with Benny (TV series)
  • 1959: The Way Up (Room at the Top) (along with Neil Paterson)
  • 1961: Armchair Theater, episode: The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (TV series)
  • 1961: And Tomorrow Everything (No Love for Johnnie) (with Nicholas Phipps)
  • 1962: The Wild and the Willing (with Nicholas Phipps)
  • 1963: Love Story, episode: Some Grist from Mervyn's Mill (TV series)
  • 1965: A place at the top (Life at the Top)
  • 1974: Duddy aims high (The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz) (with Lionel Chetwynd )
  • 1977: The Street
  • 1977: Fun with Dick and Jane (together David Giler and Jerry Belson)
  • 1979: The Wordsmith (TV movie)
  • 1985: Pauline and Joshua - To hell with ... (Joshua Then and Now)

travel

  • 1977 Images of Spain
  • 1994 This Year In Jerusalem

Essays

  • 1968 Hunting Tigers Under Glass: Essays and Reports
  • 1972 Shovelling Trouble
  • 1974 Notes on an Endangered Species and Others
  • 1978 The Great Comic Book Heroes and Other Essays
  • 1984 Home Sweet Home: My Canadian Album
  • 1991 Broadsides
  • 1998 Belling the Cat
  • 1992 Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! Requiem for a Divided Country
  • 2000 Dispatches from the Sporting Life

Non-fictional texts

  • 2001 On Snooker : The Game and the Characters Who Play It

Anthologies

  • 1970 Canadian Writing Today
  • 1986 The Best of Modern Humor
  • 1991 Writers on World War II

Film adaptations

  • 1961: Armchair Theater, episode: The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz - Director: Ted Kotcheff (TV series)
  • 1974: Duddy wants to go high (The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz) - Director: Ted Kotcheff
  • 1976: The Street - Director: Caroline Leaf
  • 1978: Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang - Director: Theodore J. Flicker
  • 1985: Pauline and Joshua - To hell with ... (Joshua Then and Now) - Director: Ted Kotcheff
  • 1999: Jacob Two Two Meets the Hooded Fang - Director: George Bloomfield
  • 2007: St. Urbain's Horseman - Director: Peter Moss (TV)
  • 2010: Barney's Version - Directed by Richard J. Lewis

literature

  • George Woodcock: Mordecai Richler . Series: Canadian Writers, 6. McCLelland & Stewart, Toronto 1971
  • G. David Sheps Ed .: Mordecai Richler . Foreword G. David Sheps, Ryerson- McGraw-Hill of Canada, Toronto 1971 ISBN 0-7700-0321-4
  • Victor J. Ramraj: Mordecai Richler . Twayne, Boston 1983 ISBN 0-8057-6554-9
  • Michael Darling (ed.): Perspectives on Mordecai Richler . ECW Press, Toronto 1986 ISBN 0-920763-00-6
  • Michael Posner: The last honest man. Mordecai Richler, an oral biography . McClelland & Stewart, Toronto 2005 ISBN 0-7710-7024-1
  • Rachel Feldhay Brenner: Assimilation and Assertion: The Response to the Holocaust in Mordecai Richler's Writing. American University Studies. Peter Lang, Bern 1989 ISBN 0820408115
  • Special Issue 207: Richler of "Canadian Literature. A quarterly of criticism and Review." ISSN  0008-4360 Optionally Engl. or French University of British Columbia , Art Faculty, Winter 2010
  • Andrea Schorsch: Crossing borders, crossing borders, dissolving borders. Cultural identity in an intra-Canadian comparison: Mordecai Richler and Régine Robin. Dr. Kovac, Hamburg 2005
  • Nadia Khouri: Qui a peur de Mordecai Richler? Balzac, Montréal 1995

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Richler, Mordecai
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian writer, screenwriter, and essayist
DATE OF BIRTH January 27, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Montreal , Canada
DATE OF DEATH July 3, 2001
Place of death Montreal , Canada