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{{short description|Canadian writer (1931–2001)}}
'''Mordecai Richler''', [[Order of Canada|CC]] ([[January 27]], [[1931]] &ndash; [[July 3]], [[2001]]) was a [[Canada|Canadian]] author, [[Academy Award]]-nominated screenwriter and essayist. A leading critic called him "the great shining star of his Canadian literary generation" and a pivotal figure in the country's history.<ref>http://www.robertfulford.com/MordecaiRichler.html</ref> His best known works are ''[[The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (book)|The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz]]'', ''[[Barney's Version]]'', and the ''[[Jacob Two-Two]]'' children's stories. Richler's uncompromising opinions on contemporary Canada easily matched, and sometimes exceeded, the [[satire|satirical]] sting of his fiction.
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2013}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Mordecai Richler
| honorific-suffix = {{post-nominals|country=CAN|CC}}
| birth_name =
| image = Mordecai Richler.jpg
| caption = Richler in the 1960s
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1931|1|27}}
| death_date = {{Death date and age|2001|7|3|1931|1|27}}
| birth_place = [[Montreal]], [[Quebec]], Canada
| death_place = Montreal, Quebec, Canada
| resting_place = [[Mount Royal Cemetery]]
| education = [[Baron Byng High School]]
| alma_mater = [[Sir George Williams University]]
| spouse = {{Plainlist|
* {{marriage|Catherine Boudreau|1954|end=div}}
* {{marriage|Florence Isabel Mann ({{nee|Wood}})|1961|2001}}
}}
| children = {{Plainlist|
* [[Daniel Richler]]
* [[Jacob Richler]]
* [[Noah Richler]]
* [[Martha Richler]]
* [[Emma Richler]]}}
| occupation = Writer
| nationality =
}}


'''Mordecai Richler''' {{post-nominals|country=CAN|CC|size=100%}} (January 27, 1931&nbsp;– July 3, 2001) was a Canadian writer. His best known works are ''[[The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (novel)|The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz]]'' (1959) and ''[[Barney's Version (novel)|Barney's Version]]'' (1997). His 1970 novel ''[[St. Urbain's Horseman]]'' and 1989 novel ''[[Solomon Gursky Was Here]]'' were nominated for the [[Booker Prize]]. He is also well known for the ''[[Jacob Two-Two]]'' fantasy series for children. In addition to his fiction, Richler wrote numerous essays about the [[History of the Jews in Canada|Jewish community in Canada]], and about [[Canadian nationalism|Canadian]] and [[Quebec nationalism]].<!--Arriving as immigrants in Canada when English was the country's predominant official language, the Jewish communities in Montreal (a city in the largely francophone province of Quebec) usually acquired English, not French, as a second language after [[Yiddish language|Yiddish]]. This later put them at odds with the Quebec nationalist movement, most of which argued for French as the province's only official language.--> Richler's ''[[Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!]]'' (1992), a collection of essays about nationalism and anti-Semitism, generated considerable controversy.
==Early years and travel==

The son of a scrapyard dealer, Richler was born and raised on St. Urbain Street in the [[Mile End (Montreal)|Mile End]] area of [[Montreal]], [[Quebec]], a neighbourhood he would later immortalize in his novels. He graduated from [[Baron Byng High School]]. Richler then enrolled in Sir George Williams College (now [[Concordia University]]) to study English but dropped out before completing his degree. He moved to [[Paris]], [[France]] at age nineteen, intent on following in the footsteps of a previous generation of literary exiles. Richler returned to Montreal in 1952, working briefly at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, then moved to [[London]], [[England]] in 1954. Worrying "about being so long away from the roots of my discontent", he returned to Montreal in 1972, but continued to spend part of each year in London.
==Biography==

===Early life and education===
The son of Lily (née Rosenberg) and Moses Isaac Richler,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.enotes.com/mordecai-richler-salem/mordecai-richler |title=Mordecai Richler Biography |website=eNotes.com |access-date=2015-05-15 |url-access=registration}}</ref> a scrap metal dealer, Richler was born on January 27, 1931, in [[Montreal]], Quebec,<ref name="nytobit">{{Cite news |last=Depalma|first=Anthony |date=2001-07-04|title=Mordecai Richler, Novelist Who Showed a Street-Smart Montreal, Is Dead at 70|language=en-US |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/04/books/mordecai-richler-novelist-who-showed-a-street-smart-montreal-is-dead-at-70.html|access-date=2021-11-05|issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref name="birthdate">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Foran |first=Charles |title=Mordecai Richler |encyclopedia=[[The Canadian Encyclopedia]] |date=4 March 2015 |publisher=[[Historica Canada]] |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/mordecai-richler}}</ref> and raised on [[Saint Urbain Street|St. Urbain Street]] in that city's [[Mile End (Montreal)|Mile End]] area. He was fluent in English, French and [[Yiddish]], and graduated from [[Baron Byng High School]]. Richler enrolled in [[Sir George Williams College]] (now [[Concordia University (Montreal)|Concordia University]]) to study but did not complete his degree. Years later, Richler's mother published an autobiography, ''The Errand Runner: Memoirs of a Rabbi's Daughter'' (1981), which discusses Mordecai's birth and upbringing, and the sometimes difficult relationship between them. (Mordecai Richler's grandfather and Lily Richler's father was [[Rabbi Yehudah Yudel Rosenberg]], a celebrated rabbi in both Poland and Canada and a prolific author of many religious texts, as well as religious fiction and non-fiction works on science and history geared for religious communities.)

Richler moved to Paris at age nineteen, intent on following in the footsteps of a previous generation of literary exiles, the so-called [[Lost Generation]] of the 1920s, many of whom were from the United States.

===Career===
Richler returned to Montreal in 1952, working briefly at the [[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]], then moved to London in 1954. He published seven of his ten novels, as well as considerable journalism, while living in London.

Worrying "about being so long away from the roots of my discontent", Richler returned to Montreal in 1972. He wrote repeatedly about the Anglophone community of Montreal and especially about his former neighbourhood, portraying it in multiple novels.

===Marriage and family===
In England, in 1954, Richler married Catherine Boudreau, nine years his senior. On the eve of their wedding, he met and was smitten by Florence Mann (née Wood), then married to Richler's close friend, screenwriter [[Stanley Mann]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.wrmea.org/1999-march/growing-intolerance-threatens-the-humane-jewish-tradition.html |title=Growing intolerance threatens humane Jewish tradition |first=Allan C. |last=Brownfeld|publisher=Washington Report on Middle East Affairs |date=March 22, 1999|access-date=2016-09-26}}</ref>

Some years later Richler and Mann both divorced their prior spouses and married each other, and Richler adopted her son [[Daniel Richler|Daniel]]. The couple had four other children together: [[Jacob Richler|Jacob]], [[Noah Richler|Noah]], [[Martha Richler|Martha]] and [[Emma Richler|Emma]]. These events inspired his novel ''[[Barney's Version (novel)|Barney's Version]]''.

Richler died of cancer on July 3, 2001, in Montreal, aged 70.<ref name="nytobit" /><ref name="birthdate"/><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/jul/05/guardianobituaries.books |first=Michael |last=McNay |title=Mordecai Richler |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=July 5, 2001}}</ref>

He was also a second cousin of novelist [[Nancy Richler]].<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/fyi/nancy-richler-novel-meticulous-study-of-jews-in-postwar-montreal-144071546.html |title=Nancy Richler novel meticulous study of Jews in postwar Montreal |work=[[Winnipeg Free Press]] |date=April 24, 2012}}</ref>

==Journalism career==
Throughout his career, Richler wrote journalistic commentary, and contributed to ''[[The Atlantic Monthly]]'', ''[[Look (American magazine)|Look]]'', ''[[The New Yorker]]'', ''[[The American Spectator]]'', and other magazines. In his later years, Richler was a newspaper columnist for ''[[The National Post]]'' and Montreal's ''[[The Gazette (Montreal)|The Gazette]]''. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he authored a monthly book review for ''[[Gentlemen's Quarterly]]''.

Richler was often critical of [[Quebec]] but of [[Canadian federalism]] as well. Another favourite Richler target was the government-subsidized [[Canlit|Canadian literary]] movement of the 1970s and 1980s. Journalism constituted an important part of his career, bringing him income between novels and films.


==''The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz''==
==''The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz''==
Richler's career took off with the publication of his fourth novel ''The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz'' in 1959. The book featured a frequent Richler theme: Jewish life in the 1930s and 40s in the neighbourhood of Montreal east of [[Mount Royal|Mount Royal Park]] on and about St. Urbain Street and [[Saint Lawrence Boulevard#The Main|the Main]] (Boul. St. Laurent). Richler wrote poignantly of the neighbourhood and its people, chronicling the hardships and disabilities they faced as a Jewish minority.
<blockquote>
To a middle-class stranger, it is true, one street would have seemed as squalid as the next. On each corner a cigar store, a grocery, and a fruit man. Outside staircases everywhere. Winding ones, wooden ones, rusty and risky ones. Here a prized lot of grass splendidly barbered, there a spitefully weedy patch. An endless repetition of precious peeling balconies and waste lots making the occasional gap here and there.<ref>''The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz'', Penguin Books, 1964, p. 13</ref>
</blockquote>


Richler published his fourth novel, ''[[The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (novel)|The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz]]'', in 1959. The book featured a frequent Richler theme: Jewish life in the 1930s and 40s in the neighbourhood of Montreal east of [[Mount Royal|Mount Royal Park]] on and about St. Urbain Street and [[Saint Lawrence Boulevard|Saint Laurent Boulevard]] (known colloquially as "The Main"). Richler wrote of the neighbourhood and its people, chronicling the hardships and disabilities they faced as a Jewish minority.
The 1974 [[The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz|movie version]] was directed by Richler's friend [[Ted Kotcheff]] and starred [[Richard Dreyfuss]] in his first leading role. Richler and [[Lionel Chetwynd]] co-wrote the screenplay.


{{quote|text=To a middle-class stranger, it is true, one street would have seemed as squalid as the next. On each corner a cigar store, a grocery, and a fruit man. Outside staircases everywhere. Winding ones, wooden ones, rusty and risky ones. Here a prized lot of grass splendidly barbered, there a spitefully weedy patch. An endless repetition of precious peeling balconies and waste lots making the occasional gap here and there. |source=''The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz'', Penguin Books, 1964, p. 13}}
==Richler as commentator==
Throughout his career, Richler wrote acerbic journalistic commentary and delighted in the role of contrarian provocateur. He was an iconoclast with little tolerance for pretense or pomposity. In a characteristic putdown, Richler called Canadian film entrepreneurs "snivelling little greasers on the make."{{Fact|date=February 2007}} Richler contributed to ''[[The Atlantic Monthly]]'', ''[[Look (American magazine)|Look]]'', and ''[[The New Yorker]]''. In his later years, Richler was a newspaper columnist for ''[[The National Post]]'' and Montreal's ''[[The Gazette]]''. He was often critical of Quebec and Canadian nationalism. Another favorite Richler target was the government-subsidized [[Canlit|Canadian literary]] movement of the 1970s and 80s. Late in life, the onetime [[enfant terrible]] seemed happy to settle into the role of curmudgeon. What never changed were Richler's caustic comments and disheveled appearance. He was more than willing to say the unsayable &mdash; though often in a weary mumble, with head bowed, hair askew and drink in hand.


Following the publication of ''Duddy Kravitz'', according to ''The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature'', Richler became "one of the foremost writers of his generation".<ref>{{cite book|editor1-last=Benson|editor1-first=Eugene|editor2-last=Toye|editor2-first=William|author-last=Brown|author-first=Ruseell|chapter=Richler, Mordecai|title=The Oxford Companion to Literature|location=Don Mills, Ontario|publisher=Oxford University Press|publication-date=1997|edition=2|page=1000}}</ref>
Richler was made a Companion of the [[Order of Canada]] in 2001, just a few months before his death. It was an ironic finale that might have made a memorable scene in a Richler novel: a fierce critic of the Canadian establishment accepting the country's highest honour.


==Reception==
==Proponents and critics==
Many critics distinguished between Richler the author and Richler the polemicist. Richler frequently said in interviews that his goal was to be an honest witness to his time and place, and to write at least one book that would be read after his death. His work was championed by journalists [[Robert Fulford]] and [[Peter Gzowski]], among others. Admirers praised Richler for daring to tell uncomfortable truths, and he has been described in The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature as "one of the foremost writers of his generation".<ref>Laurence Ricou, "Mordecai Richler", The Oxford Companion to Literature, 2d ed., 1997</ref> A 2004 oral biography by Michael Posner was entitled ''The Last Honest Man''.


Many critics distinguished Richler the author from Richler the polemicist. Richler frequently said his goal was to be an honest witness to his time and place, and to write at least one book that would be read after his death. His work was championed by journalists [[Robert Fulford (journalist)|Robert Fulford]] and [[Peter Gzowski]], among others. Admirers praised Richler for daring to tell uncomfortable truths; [[Michael Posner (journalist)|Michael Posner]]'s oral biography of Richler is titled ''The Last Honest Man'' (2004).
Detractors called Richler's satire heavy-handed{{Fact|date=February 2007}} and noted his propensity for recycling material, incorporating elements of his journalism into later novels.<ref>http://www.robertfulford.com/MordecaiRichler.html</ref> Some critics thought Richler more adept at sketching striking scenes than crafting coherent narratives.{{Fact|date=February 2007}} Richler's ambivalent relationship with Montreal's Jewish community was captured in ''Mordecai and Me'', a book by Joel Yanofsky published in 2003.


Critics cited his repeated themes, including incorporating elements of his journalism into later novels.<ref name="robertfulford.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.robertfulford.com/MordecaiRichler.html |title=Mordecai Richler: an obituary tribute by Robert Fulford |publisher=Robertfulford.com |date=July 4, 2001 |access-date=August 20, 2011}}</ref> Richler's ambivalent attitude toward Montreal's Jewish community was captured in ''Mordecai and Me'' (2003), a book by [[Joel Yanofsky]].
Richler's most frequent conflicts were with the Jewish community,<ref>''Mordecai my pal.'', By: Rabinovitch, Jack. ''[[Maclean's]]'', 24/6/2002, Vol. 115, Issue 25</ref> English Canadian nationalists, and Quebec nationalists.<ref>"Mordecai Richler, 1931-2001." By: [[Mark Steyn]]. ''[[New Criterion]]'', September 2001, Vol. 20 Issue 1, p123-128.</ref>


''The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz'' has been performed on film and in several live theatre productions in Canada and the United States.
Richler's long-running dispute with Quebec nationalists was fuelled by magazine articles he wrote in American publications between the late 1970s and mid 1990s. The articles criticized Quebec's language laws, and [[Quebec separatism|separatism]]. Critics took particular exception to Richler's allegations of anti-semitism.<ref>See, "Fighting words." By: Richler, Mordecai. ''[[New York Times Book Review]]'', [[June 1]], [[1997]], Vol. 146 Issue 50810, p8; "Tired of separatism." By: Richler, Mordecai. ''[[New York Times]]'', [[October 31]], [[1994]], Vol. 144 Issue 49866, pA19]; "O Quebec." By: Richler, Mordecai. ''[[The New Yorker|New Yorker]]'', [[May 30]], [[1994]], Vol. 70 Issue 15, p50; "Gros Mac attack." By: Richler, Mordecai. ''[[New York Times Magazine]]'', [[July 18]], 93, Vol. 142 Issue 49396, p10; "Language Problems." By: Richler, Mordecai. ''[[Atlantic]]'', Jun83, Vol. 251 Issue 6, p10, 8p; "OH! CANADA! Lament for a divided country." By: Richler, Mordecai. ''[[Atlantic Monthly]]'' (0004-6795), Dec1977, Vol. 240 Issue 6, p34;</ref>


==Controversy==
In ''[[The Atlantic Monthly]]'', around the time of the [[Quebec general election, 1976|first election]] of the [[Parti Québécois]] (PQ) in 1976, Richler linked the PQ to Nazism, by asserting that the theme song of the 1976 PQ campaign "À partir d'aujourd'hui, demain nous appartient" was a Nazi song, "Tomorrow belongs to me..." the chilling [[Hitler Youth]] song from ''[[Cabaret (musical)|Cabaret]]''.<ref name="SRCLISEE">[http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-0-72-744-4553/arts_culture/mordecai_richler/clip5 "Controverse autour du livre Oh Canada Oh Québec!" video], Archives, Société Radio-Canada, [[March 31]], [[1992]], retrieved [[September 22]], [[2006]]</ref> Neither the remainder of the text, nor the music, are related. Furthermore, the ''Cabaret'' song, never sung in Nazi Germany, was written in the 1960s by [[John Kander]], a Jewish American lyricist and composer, not German fascists. "À partir d'aujourd'hui" was written by well-known songwriter [[Stéphane Venne]] when he was asked to compose a song for an advertisement of the [[Caisses populaires Desjardins]] credit union. In ''Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!'', Richler acknowledges the error, blaming himself for having "cribbed" the information from an article by [[Irwin Cotler]] and [[Ruth Wisse]] for the Jewish American magazine ''[[Commentary (magazine)|Commentary]]''.<ref>"Faut arrêter de freaker" by Pierre Foglia, ''La Presse'', [[December 16]], [[2000]]</ref> Co-writer of the ''Commentary'' article Cotler eventually issued a written apology to Lévesque. Richler also apologized for the incident and called it an "embarrassing gaffe".<ref>Smith, Donald. ''D'une nation à l'autre: des deux solitudes à la cohabitation.'' Montreal: Éditions Alain Stanké, 1997. p. 56.''</ref>
{{main|Delisle–Richler controversy}}
Richler's most frequent conflicts were with members of the [[Quebec nationalism|Quebec nationalist movement]]. In articles published between the late 1970s and the mid-1990s, Richler criticized Quebec's restrictive language laws and the rise of [[Quebec sovereigntism|sovereigntism]].<ref>{{cite journal|title=Mordecai Richler, 1931–2001|first=Mark|last=Steyn|author-link=Mark Steyn|journal=[[New Criterion]]|date=September 2001|volume=20|issue=1|pages=123–128}}</ref><ref>See the following authored by Richler:<br>{{bullet}}
{{cite magazine |title=Fighting words |magazine=[[New York Times Book Review]] |date=June 1, 1997 |volume=146 |issue=50810 |page=8 |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/06/01/reviews/970601.01richlet.html}}<br>{{bullet}}
{{cite news |title=Tired of separatism |work=The New York Times |date=October 31, 1994 |volume=144 |issue=49866 |page=A19 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/31/opinion/tired-of-separatism.html |url-access=subscription}}<br>{{bullet}}
{{cite magazine |title=O Quebec |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |date=May 30, 1994 |volume=70 |issue=15 |page=50 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1994/05/30/o-quebec}}<br>{{bullet}}
{{cite magazine |title=On Language: Gros Mac attack |magazine=[[New York Times Magazine]] |date=18 July 1993 |volume=142 |issue=49396 |page=10 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/18/magazine/on-language-gros-mac-attack.html |url-access=subscription}}<br>{{bullet}}
{{cite magazine |title=Language Problems |magazine=[[Atlantic Monthly]] |date=June 1983 |volume=251 |issue=6 |page=10-18 |url=}}<br>{{bullet}}
{{cite magazine |title=OH! CANADA! Lament for a divided country |magazine=[[Atlantic Monthly]] |date=December 1977 |volume=240 |issue=6 |page=34 |url=}}</ref> Critics took particular exception to Richler's allegations of a long history of anti-Semitism in Quebec.<ref name=Conlogue>{{Cite news |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/oh-canada-oh-quebec-oh-richler/article1336135/ |first=Ray |last=Conlogue |title=Oh Canada, Oh Quebec, Oh Richler |work=[[The Globe and Mail]] |date=June 26, 2002 |access-date=2018-05-31}}</ref>


Soon after the [[1976 Quebec general election|first election]] of the [[Parti Québécois|Parti Québécois (PQ)]] in 1976, Richler published "Oh Canada! Lament for a divided country" in the ''[[Atlantic Monthly]]'' to considerable controversy. In it, he claimed the PQ had borrowed the [[Hitler Youth]] song "[[Tomorrow Belongs to Me]]" from ''Cabaret'' for their anthem "À partir d'aujourd'hui, demain nous appartient",<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Richler |first=Mordecai |title=OH! CANADA! Lament for a divided country |magazine=[[Atlantic Monthly]] |date=December 1977 |volume=240 |issue=6 |page=34 |url=}}</ref><ref name="SRCLISEE">{{cite news |url=http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-0-72-744-4553/arts_culture/mordecai_richler/clip5 |title=Video: Controverse autour du livre Oh Canada Oh Québec! |work=Archives |publisher=Société Radio-Canada |date=March 31, 1992 |access-date=September 22, 2006}}</ref> though he later acknowledged his error on the song, blaming himself for having "cribbed" the information from an article by [[Irwin Cotler]] and [[Ruth Wisse]] published in the American magazine, ''[[Commentary (magazine)|Commentary]]''.<ref>{{cite news |title=Faut arrêter de freaker |first=Pierre |last=Foglia |work=La Presse |date=December 16, 2000}}</ref> Cotler eventually issued a written apology to Lévesque of the PQ. Richler also apologized for the incident and called it an "embarrassing gaffe".<ref name=Conlogue/><ref>{{cite book |last=Smith |first=Donald |title=D'une nation à l'autre: des deux solitudes à la cohabitation |location=Montreal |publisher=Éditions Alain Stanké |date=1997 |page=56}}</ref>
His views were strongly criticized by some in Québec and to some degree among [[Anglophone Canadians]].<ref>Smart, Pat. "Daring to Disagree with Mordecai" in ''Canadian Forum'' May 1992, p.8.</ref> His detractors maintained that Richler had an outdated and stereotyped view of Quebec society, and that he risked polarizing relations between French and English. After the publication of ''Oh Canada! Oh Quebec'', [[Pierrette Venne]], a future [[Bloc Québécois]] MP called for the book to be banned.<ref> Johnson, William. "Oh, Mordecai. Oh, Quebec." ''The Globe and Mail'' [[July 7]], [[2001]].</ref> Daniel Latouche compared the book to ''[[Mein Kampf]]''.<ref>"Le Grand Silence", ''Le Devoir'', [[March 28]], [[1992]].</ref> Nadia Khouri believes that there was a racist undertone in some of the reaction to Richler, emphasizing that he was not "one of us"<ref>"Richler, Trudeau, Lasagne et les autres", [[October 22]], [[1991]]. ''Le Devoir''</ref> or that he was not a "real Quebecer"<ref>Sarah Scott, Geoff Baker, "Richler Doesn't Know Quebec, Belanger Says; Writer 'Doesn't Belong', Chairman of Panel on Quebec's Future Insists", ''The Gazette'', [[20 September]] [[1991]].</ref> Additionally some passages were deliberately misquoted; a section in which he said that Quebec women were treated like "sows" was misinterpreted to suggest that Richler thought they were sows.<ref>Khouri, Nadia. ''Qui a peur de Mordecai Richler.'' Montréal: Éditions Balzac, 1995. </ref> Other French writers also thought there had been an overreaction, including Jean-Hugues Roy, Étienne Gignac, Serge-Henri Vicière, and Dorval Brunelle. His defenders asserted that Mordecai Richler may have been wrong on certain specific points, but was certainly not racist or anti-Quebecois.<ref>"Hitting below the belt.", By: [[Barbara Amiel]], ''[[Maclean's]]'', 13/8/2001, Vol. 114, Issue 33</ref> Richler had always attacked nationalists, including English Canadians, Israelis and [[Zionist]]s. {{Fact|date=February 2007}} Some Quebecers acclaimed Richler for his courage and for attacking the orthodoxies of Quebec society,<ref>Khouri, Nadia. ''Qui a peur de Mordecai Richler.'' Montréal: Éditions Balzac, 1995 </ref> and he has been described as "the most prominent defender of the rights of Quebec's anglophones."<ref>Ricou, above</ref>


In 1992 Richler published ''[[Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!|Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!: Requiem for a Divided Country]]'', which parodied Quebec's language laws. He commented approvingly on [[Esther Delisle]]'s ''[[The Traitor and the Jew|The Traitor and the Jew: Anti-Semitism and the Delirium of Extremist Right-Wing Nationalism in French Canada from 1929–1939]]'' (1992), about French-Canadian anti-Semitism in the decade before the start of World War II. ''Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!'' was criticized by the Quebec sovereigntist movement and to a lesser degree by other [[anglophone Canadians]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Smart |first=Pat |title=Daring to Disagree with Mordecai |work=Canadian Forum |date=May 1992 |page=8}}</ref> His detractors claimed that Richler had an outdated and stereotyped view of Quebec society, and fearmongered that he risked polarizing relations between francophone and anglophone Quebecers. Sovereigntist [[Pierrette Venne]], later elected as a [[Bloc Québécois]] MP, called for the book to be banned.<ref>{{cite news |last=Johnson |first=William |title=Oh, Mordecai. Oh, Quebec |work=The Globe and Mail |date=July 7, 2001 |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/oh-mordecai-oh-quebec/article1338484/ |url-access=subscription}}</ref> Daniel Latouche compared the book to ''[[Mein Kampf]]''.<ref>{{cite news |title=Le Grand Silence |work=Le Devoir |date=March 28, 1992}}</ref>
The reaction to Richler's book itself raised concerns for some commentators<ref>Khouri, above, Scott et al., above, Delisle cited in Kraft, below</ref> about the persistence of antisemitism among sections of the Quebec population. He received death threats, including a threat to blow up the hospital in which he was staying, and letters with swastikas drawn on them;<ref>Noah Richler, "A Just Campaign", ''The New York Times'', [[October 7]], [[2001]], p. AR4</ref> a Francophone journalist yelled at one of his sons that "if your father was here, I'd make him relive the holocaust right now!", while an editorial cartoon in the French press compared him to Hitler.<ref>Michel Vastel, "Le cas Richler". ''[[L'actualité]]'', [[November 1]], [[1996]], p.66</ref> The criticism that he wrote his essay on Quebec for money was seen as evoking old stereotypes of Jews, and the demands made for leaders of the Jewish community to dissociate themselves from Richler were seen as indicating that Richler, although born in Quebec and for a time married to a French-Canadian, was "not part of the tribe" because he was anglo and
Jewish.<ref>Frances Kraft, "Esther Delisle", The Canadian Jewish News, [[April 1]], [[1993]], p. 6</ref>


[[Nadia Khouri]] believes that there was a discriminatory undertone in the reaction to Richler, noting that some of his critics characterized him as "not one of us"<ref>Richler, Trudeau, "Lasagne et les autres", October 22, 1991. ''Le Devoir''</ref> or that he was not a "real Quebecer".<ref>Sarah Scott, Geoff Baker, "Richler Doesn't Know Quebec, Belanger Says; Writer 'Doesn't Belong', Chairman of Panel on Quebec's Future Insists", ''The Gazette'', September 20, 1991.</ref> She found that some critics had misquoted his work; for instance, in reference to the mantra of the entwined church and state coaxing females to procreate as vastly as possible, a section in which he said that Quebec women were treated like "sows" was misinterpreted to suggest that Richler thought they were sows.<ref name="Khouri"/> Québécois writers who thought critics had overreacted included [[Jean-Hugues Roy]], [[Étienne Gignac]], [[Serge-Henri Vicière]], and [[Dorval Brunelle]]. His defenders asserted that Mordecai Richler may have been wrong on certain specific points, but was certainly not racist nor anti-Québécois.<ref>"Hitting below the belt.", By: [[Barbara Amiel]], ''[[Maclean's]]'', August 13, 2001, Vol. 114, Issue 33</ref> Nadia Khouri acclaimed Richler for his courage and for attacking the orthodoxies of Quebec society.<ref name="Khouri">Khouri, Nadia. ''Qui a peur de Mordecai Richler.'' Montréal: Éditions Balzac, 1995. {{ISBN|9782921425537}}</ref> He has been described as "the most prominent defender of the rights of Quebec's anglophones".<ref>Ricou, above</ref>
Following [[Jacques Parizeau]]'s comment on the day of the [[1995 Quebec referendum|1995 referendum]], where the latter attributed the loss to "money and the ethnic vote", Richler created the "Impure Wool Society" which granted the "''Prix Parizeau''" to a distinguished non-Francophone writer of Quebec. The group's name plays on the expression "québécois [[pur laine]]", typically used to refer to Quebecois with extensive French-Canadian ancestry. The prize (with an award of $3000) was granted twice: [[Benet Davetian]] in 1996 for ''The Seventh Circle'', and [[David Manicom]] in 1997 for ''Ice In Dark Water''.<ref>http://www.mala.bc.ca/~soules/english/awards.htm</ref>


Some commentators were alarmed about the strong controversy over Richler's book, saying that it underlines and acknowledges the persistence of anti-Semitism among sections of the Quebec population.<ref>Khouri, above, Scott et al., above, Delisle cited in Kraft, below</ref> Richler received death threats;<ref>Noah Richler, "A Just Campaign", ''The New York Times'', October 7, 2001, p. AR4</ref> an anti-Semitic Francophone journalist yelled at one of his sons, "[I]f your father was here, I'd make him relive the Holocaust right now!" An editorial cartoon in ''[[L'actualité]]'' compared him to Hitler.<ref>Michel Vastel, "Le cas Richler". ''[[L'actualité]]'', November 1, 1996, p.66</ref> One critic controversially claimed that Richler had been paid by Jewish groups to write his critical essay on Quebec. His defenders believed this was evoking old stereotypes of Jews. When leaders of the Jewish community were asked to dissociate themselves from Richler, the journalist [[Frances Kraft]] said that indicated that they did not consider Richler as part of the Quebec "tribe" because he was Anglo-speaking and Jewish.<ref>Frances Kraft, "Esther Delisle", ''The Canadian Jewish News'', April 1, 1993, p. 6</ref>
==Family life==
Richler divorced Catherine Boudreault to marry his second wife, Florence. He adopted her son Daniel. The couple had five children, including:
* [[Daniel Richler]] - A longstanding figure in Canadian media and broadcasting, Daniel Richler has written a semi-autobiographical novel, ''Kicking Tomorrow'' (1991). The protagonist's father bears many similarities to Mordecai Richler.
* [[Emma Richler]] - author of a collection of linked short stories ''Sister Crazy'' (2001), which features a father modeled on her own. A novel, ''Feed My Dear Dogs'' was published in 2005.
* [[Jacob Richler]] - an author and columnist.
* [[Noah Richler]] - a journalist, radio producer and host, and author of ''This Is My Country, What's Yours? A Literary Atlas of Canada'' (2006).
*[[Martha Richler]] - a cartoonist who published a daily cartoon, most recently, in London's ''[[Evening Standard]]'', using the pen-name "Marf". Her cartoons are in the collection of the [[Victoria & Albert Museum]], London, and the Charles Saatchi Collection. She also wrote the companion guide to Washington's [[National Gallery of Art]], ''A World of Art''.


About the same time, Richler announced he had founded the "Impure Wool Society," to grant the ''Prix [[Jacques Parizeau|Parizeau]]'' to a distinguished non-Francophone writer of Quebec. The group's name plays on the expression ''Québécois [[pure laine]]'', typically used to refer to Quebecker with extensive French-Canadian multi-generational ancestry (or "pure wool"). The prize (with an award of $3000) was granted twice: to [[Benet Davetian]] in 1996 for ''The Seventh Circle'', and [[David Manicom]] in 1997 for ''Ice in Dark Water''.<ref>[http://www.mala.bc.ca/~soules/english/awards.htm Siemens: "Canadian Literary Awards and Prizes"], ''The Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada'' {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120205025405/http://www.mala.bc.ca/~soules/english/awards.htm |date=February 5, 2012 }}</ref>
Leah Rosenberg, Richler's mother, published an autobiography, ''The Errand Runner: Memoirs of a Rabbi's Daughter'' (1981), which discusses Mordecai's birth and upbringing.

In 2010, Montreal city councillor [[Marvin Rotrand]] presented a 4,000-signature petition calling on the city to honour Richler on the 10th anniversary of his death with the renaming of a street, park or building in Richler's old Mile End neighbourhood. The council initially denied an honour to Richler, saying it would sacrifice the heritage of their neighbourhood.<ref name="thestar.com">{{cite web|url=https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2015/03/13/mordecai-richler-would-have-enjoyed-montreal-memorial-controversy.html |title=Mordecai Richler would have enjoyed Montreal memorial controversy |work=Toronto Star |date=2015-03-13 |access-date=2015-05-15}}</ref> In response to the controversy, the City of Montreal announced it was to renovate and rename a gazebo in his honour. For various reasons, the project stalled for several years but was completed in 2016.<ref>{{Cite news |date=12 September 2016 |title=Mordecai Richler gazebo finally finished |work=[[CBC News]] |url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/mordecai-richler-montreal-gazebo-opens-2016-1.3758541}}</ref>

==Representation in other media==
* ''St. Urbain's Horseman'' (1971) was made into a CBC television drama.
* In 1973 ''The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz'' was adapted into a [[The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (film)|film of the same name]] starring [[Richard Dreyfuss]] as Duddy.
* ''The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz'' has repeatedly been [[The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (musical)|adapted as a musical play]], i.e. in 1984 (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada), 1987 (Philadelphia), and 2015 (Montreal).
* The animator [[Caroline Leaf]] created ''[[The Street (story collection)|The Street]]'' (1976), based on Richler's 1969 short story of the same name. It was nominated for an [[Academy Award]] in animation.
* In 1978 ''Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang'' was adapted into a theatrical film as [[Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang (1978 film)|''Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang'' (1978 film)]].
* In 1999 ''Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang'' was adapted into a television film as [[Jacob Two Two Meets the Hooded Fang (1999 film)|''Jacob Two Two Meets the Hooded Fang'' (1999 film)]].
* In 1985 ''Joshua Then and Now'' (1980) was adapted into a [[Joshua Then and Now (film)|film of the same name]].
* In 2003 Jacob Two-Two was adapted into an [[Jacob Two-Two (TV series)|animated series of the same name]] loosely based on the titular character of the book series.
* In 2009 ''[[Barney's Version (novel)|Barney's Version]]'' was adapted for radio by the CBC.
* In 2010 ''Barney's Version'' (1997) was adapted into a [[Barney's Version (film)|film of the same name]].


==Awards and recognition==
==Awards and recognition==
*1969 [[Governor General's Award]] for ''Cocksure'' and ''Hunting Tigers Under Glass''.
* 1969 [[Governor General's Award]] for ''Cocksure'' and ''Hunting Tigers Under Glass''.
*1972 Governor General's Award for ''St. Urbain's Horseman''.
* 1972 Governor General's Award for ''St. Urbain's Horseman''.
*1974 [[Screenwriters Guild of America Award]] for Best Comedy for screenplay of ''The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz''.
* 1975 [[Writers Guild of America Award]] for Best Comedy for screenplay of ''The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz''.
*1976 Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award: ''Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang''.
* 1976 Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award: ''Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang''.
*1976 Ruth Schwartz Children's Book Award for ''Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang''.
* 1976 Ruth Schwartz Children's Book Award for ''Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang''.
*1990 [[Commonwealth Writers Prize]] for ''Solomon Gursky was Here''
* 1990 [[Commonwealth Writers Prize]] for ''Solomon Gursky was Here''
*1995 Mr. Christie's Book Award (for the best English book age 8 to 11) for ''Jacob Two-Two's First Spy Case''.
* 1995 Mr. Christie's Book Award (for the best English book age 8 to 11) for ''Jacob Two-Two's First Spy Case''.
*1997 The [[Giller Prize]] for ''Barney's Version''.
* 1997 The [[Giller Prize]] for ''Barney's Version''.
*1998 Canadian Booksellers Associations "Author of the Year" award.
* 1998 Canadian Booksellers Associations "Author of the Year" award.
*1998 Stephen Leacock Award for Humour ''Barney's Version''
* 1998 Stephen Leacock Award for Humour for ''Barney's Version''
*1998 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book (Canada & Caribbean region)''Barney's Version''
* 1998 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book (Canada & Caribbean region) for ''Barney's Version''
* 1998 The [[QSPELL Award]] for ''Barney's Version''.
*2000 Honorary Doctorate of Letters, [[McGill University]], Montreal, Quebec.
* 2000 Honorary Doctorate of Letters, [[McGill University]], Montreal, Quebec.
*2001 [[Companion of the Order of Canada]]
* 2000 Honorary Doctorate, [[Bishop's University]], Lennoxville, Quebec.
*2004 Number 98 on the [[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation|CBC]]'s television show about great Canadians, ''[[The Greatest Canadian]]''
* 2001 [[Companion of the Order of Canada]]
*''[[Barney's Version]]'' was chosen for inclusion in [[Canada Reads|Canada Reads 2004]], championed by [[author]] [[Zsuzsi Gartner]]. ''[[Cocksure]]'' was chosen for inclusion in [[Canada Reads|Canada Reads 2006]], championed by actor and author [[Scott Thompson]]
* 2004 Number 98 on the [[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation|CBC]]'s television show about great Canadians, ''[[The Greatest Canadian]]''
* ''Barney's Version'' was also adapted to radio by the CBC
* 2004 ''[[Barney's Version (novel)|Barney's Version]]'' was chosen for inclusion in [[Canada Reads|Canada Reads 2004]], championed by author [[Zsuzsi Gartner]].
* 2006 ''[[Cocksure]]'' was chosen for inclusion in [[Canada Reads|Canada Reads 2006]], championed by actor and author [[Scott Thompson (comedian)|Scott Thompson]]
* 2011 Richler posthumously received a star on [[Canada's Walk of Fame]] and was inducted at the [[Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres|Elgin Theatre]] in Toronto.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.canadaswalkoffame.com/news/press-release-canadas-walk-fame-announces-2011-inductees|title=Press Release: Canada's Walk of Fame Announces the 2011 Inductees|date=June 28, 2011|access-date=June 28, 2011|publisher=Canada's Walk of Fame|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110710002641/http://www.canadaswalkoffame.com/news/press-release-canadas-walk-fame-announces-2011-inductees|archive-date=July 10, 2011|df=mdy-all}}</ref>
* 2011 In the same month he was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame, the [[City of Montreal]] announced that a [[gazebo]] in [[Mount Royal Park]] would be refurbished and named in his honour. The structure overlooks [[Jeanne-Mance Park]], where Richler played in his youth.<ref name=Peritz>{{cite news|last=Peritz|first=Ingrid|title=Mordecai Richler to be honoured with gazebo on Mount Royal|url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/quebec/mordecai-richler-to-be-honoured-with-gazebo-on-mount-royal/article2073645/|access-date=December 25, 2011|newspaper=[[The Globe and Mail]]|date=June 24, 2011}}</ref>
* 2015 Richler was given his due as a "citizen of honour" in the city of Montreal. The Mile End Library, in the neighbourhood he portrayed in ''The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz'', was given his name.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-at-last-a-richler-library |title=Editorial: At last, a Richler library |publisher=Montrealgazette.com |date=2015-03-12 |access-date=2015-05-15}}</ref>


==Bibliography==
==Published works==

===Fiction===
===Novels===
*''The Acrobats'' (1954) (also published as [http://www.johnwmacdonald.com/wwl.html ''Wicked We Love''], July 1955)
* ''The Acrobats'' (1954) (also published as ''Wicked We Love'', July 1955)
*''[[Son of a Smaller Hero]]'' (1955)
*''[[A Choice of Enemies]]'' (1957)
* ''[[Son of a Smaller Hero]]'' (1955)
*''[[The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (book)|The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz]]'' (1959)
* ''[[A Choice of Enemies]]'' (1957)
* ''[[The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (novel)|The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz]]'' (1959)
*''[[The Incomparable Atuk]]'' (1963)
* ''[[The Incomparable Atuk]]'' (1963)
*''[[Cocksure]]'' (1968)
* ''[[Cocksure]]'' (1968)
*''The Street'' (1969)
* ''[[St. Urbain's Horseman]]'' (1971)
*''[[St. Urbain's Horseman]]'' (1971)
* ''[[Joshua Then and Now]]'' (1980)
*''[[Joshua Then and Now]]'' (1980)
* ''[[Solomon Gursky Was Here]]'' (1989)
*''[[Solomon Gursky Was Here]]'' (1989)
* ''[[Barney's Version (novel)|Barney's Version]]'' (1997)

*''[[Barney's Version]]'' (1997)
===Short story collection===
* ''[[The Street (story collection)|The Street]]'' (1969)


===Fiction for children===
===Fiction for children===
;[[Jacob Two-Two]] series<ref>The Jacob Two-Two books are about 100 pages each. Two of them are Richler's only works in [[Internet Speculative Fiction Database]] (ISFDB), which catalogues them as juvenile fantasy novels and reports multiple cover artists and interior illustrators.
*''[[Jacob Two-Two]] Meets the Hooded Fang'' (1975)
<br />&nbsp; [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?2147 "Mordecai Richler – Summary Bibliography"]. ISFDB. Retrieved July 25, 2015.</ref>
*''Jacob Two-Two and the Dinosaur'' (1987)
*''Jacob Two-Two's First Spy Case'' (1995)
* ''Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang'' ([[Alfred A. Knopf]], 1975), illustrated by [[Fritz Wegner]]
* ''Jacob Two-Two and the Dinosaur'' (1987) <!-- 2004 Tundra Books ed. illus. Norman Eyolfson; other eds. missing or illus. missing -->
* ''Jacob Two-Two's First Spy Case'' (1995)


===Travel===
===Travel===
*''Images of Spain'' (1977)
* ''Images of Spain'' (1977)
*''This Year In Jerusalem'' (1994)
* ''This Year in Jerusalem'' (1994)


===Essays===
===Essays===
*''Hunting Tigers Under Glass: Essays and Reports'' (1968)
* ''Hunting Tigers Under Glass: Essays and Reports'' (1968)
*''Shovelling Trouble'' (1972)
* ''Shovelling Trouble'' (1972)
*''Notes on an Endangered Species and Others'' (1974)
* ''Notes on an Endangered Species and Others'' (1974)
*''The Great Comic Book Heroes and Other Essays'' (1978)
* ''The Great Comic Book Heroes and Other Essays'' (1978)
*''Home Sweet Home: My Canadian Album'' (1984)
* ''Home Sweet Home: My Canadian Album'' (1984)
*''Broadsides'' (1991)
* ''Broadsides'' (1991)
*''Belling the Cat'' (1998)
* ''Belling the Cat'' (1998)
*''[[Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! Requiem for a Divided Country]]'' (1992)
* ''[[Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! Requiem for a Divided Country]]'' (1992)
*''Dispatches from the Sporting Life'' (2002)
* ''Dispatches from the Sporting Life'' (2002)


===Nonfiction===
===Nonfiction===
*''On [[Snooker]]: The Game and the Characters Who Play It'' (2001)
* ''On [[Snooker]]: The Game and the Characters Who Play It'' (2001)


===Anthologies===
===Anthologies===
*''Canadian Writing Today'' (1970)
* ''Canadian Writing Today'' (1970)
*''The Best of Modern Humour'' (1986) (U.S. title: ''The Best of Modern Humor'')
* ''The Best of Modern Humour'' (1986) (U.S. title: ''The Best of Modern Humor'')
*''Writers on World War II'' - (1991)
* ''Writers on World War II'' (1991)


==Film scripts==
==Film scripts==
* ''[[Life at the Top]]'' (1965) (screenplay from novel by [[John Braine]])
* ''[[Insomnia Is Good for You]]'' (1957) (co-written with [[Lewis Griefer]] )
* ''Dearth of a Salesman'' (1957, starring [[Peter Sellers]] ) (co-written with [[Lewis Griefer]] )
* ''[[The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (film)]]'' (1974) (Screenwriters Guild Award and [[Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay#1970s|Oscar screenplay nomination]])
* ''[[No Love for Johnnie]]'' (1962) (co-written with [[Nicholas Phipps]], based on the novel by [[Wilfred Fienburgh]])
* ''[[The Street (short animation)]]'' (1976) [http://www.nfb.ca/animation/objanim/en/films/film.php?sort=director&director=Leaf%2C+Caroline&id=10524]
* ''[[Fun with Dick and Jane (film)]]'' (1977) (with David Giler & Jerry Belson, from a story by Gerald Gaiser)
* ''[[Life at the Top (film)|Life at the Top]]'' (1965) (screenplay from novel by [[John Braine]])
* ''[[The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (film)|The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz]]'' (1974) (Screenwriters Guild Award and [[Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay#1970s|Oscar screenplay nomination]])
* ''[[The Wordsmith (TV)]]'' (1979)
* ''[[The Street (1976 film)|The Street]]'' (1976)<ref>{{cite web|title=The Street|url=http://www.onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/collection/film/?id=10524#nav-prix|publisher=National Film Board of Canada|access-date=August 21, 2012}}</ref> (Oscar nomination)
* ''[[Joshua Then and Now (film)]]'' (1985)
* ''[[Fun with Dick and Jane (1977 film)|Fun with Dick and Jane]]'' (1977, with David Giler & Jerry Belson, from a story by Gerald Gaiser)

* ''[[The Wordsmith]]'' (1979)
==External links==
* ''[[Joshua Then and Now (film)|Joshua Then and Now]]'' (1985)
{{wikiquote}}
* ''[[Barney's Version (film)|Barney's Version]]'' (2010, screenplay by [[Michael Konyves]], based on Richler's novel of the same name; Richler wrote an early draft)
*Ken Alexander, [http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2005.06-sightings-missing-mordecai/ "Missing Mordecai"], ''[[The Walrus]]'', June 2005
*{{imdb name|id=0725006|name=Mordecai Richler}}
*[http://theorem.ca/~mvcorks/yiddish.html Yiddish phrases & cultural references in ''The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz'']
*[http://archives.cbc.ca/IDD-1-74-753/people/mordecai_richler/ CBC Digital Archives: Mordecai Richler Was Here]
* {{WiredForBooks|mordecairichler|1983, 1990 audio interviews with Mordecai Richler|by [[Don Swaim]]}}
* [http://www.northernstars.ca/Writers/richler_bio.html Obituary of Richler]
* [http://www.ucalgary.ca/lib-old/SpecColl/richlerbioc.htm Literary biography of Richler]
* [http://www.robertfulford.com/MordecaiRichler.html Obituary] by [[Robert Fulford]]
* {{findagrave|7284679}}


==See also==
==See also==
{{Portal|Children's literature}}
* [[List of Quebec authors]]
* [[List of Quebec authors]]
* [[Jews in Montreal]]
* [[World famous in New Zealand]] (Richler coined the similar phrase "world famous – in Canada")


==References==
==References==
{{Reflist}}


==Further reading==
<references />
* [[Charles Foran]], ''Mordecai: The Life & Times'' (Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2010)
{{Scotiabank Giller Prize Winners}}
* Reinhold Kramer, ''Mordecai Richler: Leaving St Urbain'' (2008)
* [http://www.tolerance.ca/Article.aspx?ID=102138 Victor Teboul, Ph.D., "Mordecai Richler, le Québec et les Juifs"], Tolerance website
* [[M. G. Vassanji]], ''Extraordinary Canadians: Mordecai Richler'' (Penguin, 2009), biography


==External links==
{{DEFAULTSORT:Richler, Mordecai}}
{{wikiquote}}
* {{cite web |title=Mordecai Richler |website=Face to Face |publisher=Canadian Museum of History |url=https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/hist/biography/biographi240e.html}}
* {{IMDb name|725006|Mordecai Richler}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20041009203120/http://www.theorem.ca/~mvcorks/yiddish.html Yiddish phrases & cultural references in ''The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz'']
* [http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/arts-entertainment/literature/mordecai-richler-was-here/apathy-envy-and-the-great-canadian-wasteland.html CBC Digital Archives: Mordecai Richler Was Here]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20061111183115/http://www.northernstars.ca/Writers/richler_bio.html Obituary of Richler]
* [https://www.ucalgary.ca/lib-old/SpecColl/richlerbioc.htm Literary biography of Richler]
* [http://www.robertfulford.com/MordecaiRichler.html Obituary] by [[Robert Fulford (journalist)|Robert Fulford]]
* {{Find a Grave|7284679}}
*[http://www.walkmontreal.com/walks/mordecai-mile-end-le-plateau-and-lots-of-heritage Walk in Montreal commemorating Mordecai Richler]


{{Giller Prize}}
[[Category:Canadian novelists]]
{{Governor General's English fiction}}
[[Category:Jewish novelists]]
{{Commonwealth Writers' Prize: Best Book Winners}}
[[Category:Canadian screenwriters]]
{{Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay}}
[[Category:Canadian Jews]]

[[Category:Companions of the Order of Canada]]
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:People from Montreal]]

[[Category:Quebec writers]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Richler, Mordecai}}
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[[Category:1931 births]]
[[Category:1931 births]]
[[Category:2001 deaths]]
[[Category:2001 deaths]]
[[Category:Governor General's Award winning fiction writers]]
[[Category:Richler family|Mordecai]]
[[Category:Governor General's Award winning non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:20th-century Canadian essayists]]
[[Category:Kidney cancer deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century Canadian Jews]]
[[Category:20th-century Canadian novelists]]

[[Category:20th-century Canadian screenwriters]]
[[de:Mordecai Richler]]
[[Category:Anglophone Quebec people]]
[[es:Mordecai Richler]]
[[Category:Burials at Mount Royal Cemetery]]
[[fr:Mordecai Richler]]
[[Category:Canadian expatriates in England]]
[[it:Mordecai Richler]]
[[Category:Canadian fantasy writers]]
[[he:מרדכי ריצ'לר]]
[[Category:Canadian male essayists]]
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[[Category:Canadian people of Polish-Jewish descent]]
[[Category:Canadian socialists]]
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[[Category:Deaths from cancer in Quebec]]
[[Category:Deaths from kidney cancer in Canada]]
[[Category:Governor General's Award-winning fiction writers]]
[[Category:Governor General's Award-winning non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:Jewish Canadian writers]]
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[[Category:Jewish novelists]]
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[[Category:People from Le Plateau-Mont-Royal]]
[[Category:Screenwriters from Quebec]]
[[Category:Sir George Williams University alumni]]
[[Category:Stephen Leacock Award winners]]
[[Category:Writers from London]]
[[Category:Writers from Montreal]]
[[Category:Writers Guild of America Award winners]]

Latest revision as of 16:41, 16 May 2024

Mordecai Richler
Richler in the 1960s
Born(1931-01-27)January 27, 1931
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
DiedJuly 3, 2001(2001-07-03) (aged 70)
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Resting placeMount Royal Cemetery
EducationBaron Byng High School
Alma materSir George Williams University
OccupationWriter
Spouses
Catherine Boudreau
(m. 1954, divorced)
Florence Isabel Mann (née Wood)
(m. 1961⁠–⁠2001)
Children

Mordecai Richler CC (January 27, 1931 – July 3, 2001) was a Canadian writer. His best known works are The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1959) and Barney's Version (1997). His 1970 novel St. Urbain's Horseman and 1989 novel Solomon Gursky Was Here were nominated for the Booker Prize. He is also well known for the Jacob Two-Two fantasy series for children. In addition to his fiction, Richler wrote numerous essays about the Jewish community in Canada, and about Canadian and Quebec nationalism. Richler's Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! (1992), a collection of essays about nationalism and anti-Semitism, generated considerable controversy.

Biography[edit]

Early life and education[edit]

The son of Lily (née Rosenberg) and Moses Isaac Richler,[1] a scrap metal dealer, Richler was born on January 27, 1931, in Montreal, Quebec,[2][3] and raised on St. Urbain Street in that city's Mile End area. He was fluent in English, French and Yiddish, and graduated from Baron Byng High School. Richler enrolled in Sir George Williams College (now Concordia University) to study but did not complete his degree. Years later, Richler's mother published an autobiography, The Errand Runner: Memoirs of a Rabbi's Daughter (1981), which discusses Mordecai's birth and upbringing, and the sometimes difficult relationship between them. (Mordecai Richler's grandfather and Lily Richler's father was Rabbi Yehudah Yudel Rosenberg, a celebrated rabbi in both Poland and Canada and a prolific author of many religious texts, as well as religious fiction and non-fiction works on science and history geared for religious communities.)

Richler moved to Paris at age nineteen, intent on following in the footsteps of a previous generation of literary exiles, the so-called Lost Generation of the 1920s, many of whom were from the United States.

Career[edit]

Richler returned to Montreal in 1952, working briefly at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, then moved to London in 1954. He published seven of his ten novels, as well as considerable journalism, while living in London.

Worrying "about being so long away from the roots of my discontent", Richler returned to Montreal in 1972. He wrote repeatedly about the Anglophone community of Montreal and especially about his former neighbourhood, portraying it in multiple novels.

Marriage and family[edit]

In England, in 1954, Richler married Catherine Boudreau, nine years his senior. On the eve of their wedding, he met and was smitten by Florence Mann (née Wood), then married to Richler's close friend, screenwriter Stanley Mann.[4]

Some years later Richler and Mann both divorced their prior spouses and married each other, and Richler adopted her son Daniel. The couple had four other children together: Jacob, Noah, Martha and Emma. These events inspired his novel Barney's Version.

Richler died of cancer on July 3, 2001, in Montreal, aged 70.[2][3][5]

He was also a second cousin of novelist Nancy Richler.[6]

Journalism career[edit]

Throughout his career, Richler wrote journalistic commentary, and contributed to The Atlantic Monthly, Look, The New Yorker, The American Spectator, and other magazines. In his later years, Richler was a newspaper columnist for The National Post and Montreal's The Gazette. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he authored a monthly book review for Gentlemen's Quarterly.

Richler was often critical of Quebec but of Canadian federalism as well. Another favourite Richler target was the government-subsidized Canadian literary movement of the 1970s and 1980s. Journalism constituted an important part of his career, bringing him income between novels and films.

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz[edit]

Richler published his fourth novel, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, in 1959. The book featured a frequent Richler theme: Jewish life in the 1930s and 40s in the neighbourhood of Montreal east of Mount Royal Park on and about St. Urbain Street and Saint Laurent Boulevard (known colloquially as "The Main"). Richler wrote of the neighbourhood and its people, chronicling the hardships and disabilities they faced as a Jewish minority.

To a middle-class stranger, it is true, one street would have seemed as squalid as the next. On each corner a cigar store, a grocery, and a fruit man. Outside staircases everywhere. Winding ones, wooden ones, rusty and risky ones. Here a prized lot of grass splendidly barbered, there a spitefully weedy patch. An endless repetition of precious peeling balconies and waste lots making the occasional gap here and there.

— The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Penguin Books, 1964, p. 13

Following the publication of Duddy Kravitz, according to The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, Richler became "one of the foremost writers of his generation".[7]

Reception[edit]

Many critics distinguished Richler the author from Richler the polemicist. Richler frequently said his goal was to be an honest witness to his time and place, and to write at least one book that would be read after his death. His work was championed by journalists Robert Fulford and Peter Gzowski, among others. Admirers praised Richler for daring to tell uncomfortable truths; Michael Posner's oral biography of Richler is titled The Last Honest Man (2004).

Critics cited his repeated themes, including incorporating elements of his journalism into later novels.[8] Richler's ambivalent attitude toward Montreal's Jewish community was captured in Mordecai and Me (2003), a book by Joel Yanofsky.

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz has been performed on film and in several live theatre productions in Canada and the United States.

Controversy[edit]

Richler's most frequent conflicts were with members of the Quebec nationalist movement. In articles published between the late 1970s and the mid-1990s, Richler criticized Quebec's restrictive language laws and the rise of sovereigntism.[9][10] Critics took particular exception to Richler's allegations of a long history of anti-Semitism in Quebec.[11]

Soon after the first election of the Parti Québécois (PQ) in 1976, Richler published "Oh Canada! Lament for a divided country" in the Atlantic Monthly to considerable controversy. In it, he claimed the PQ had borrowed the Hitler Youth song "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" from Cabaret for their anthem "À partir d'aujourd'hui, demain nous appartient",[12][13] though he later acknowledged his error on the song, blaming himself for having "cribbed" the information from an article by Irwin Cotler and Ruth Wisse published in the American magazine, Commentary.[14] Cotler eventually issued a written apology to Lévesque of the PQ. Richler also apologized for the incident and called it an "embarrassing gaffe".[11][15]

In 1992 Richler published Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!: Requiem for a Divided Country, which parodied Quebec's language laws. He commented approvingly on Esther Delisle's The Traitor and the Jew: Anti-Semitism and the Delirium of Extremist Right-Wing Nationalism in French Canada from 1929–1939 (1992), about French-Canadian anti-Semitism in the decade before the start of World War II. Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! was criticized by the Quebec sovereigntist movement and to a lesser degree by other anglophone Canadians.[16] His detractors claimed that Richler had an outdated and stereotyped view of Quebec society, and fearmongered that he risked polarizing relations between francophone and anglophone Quebecers. Sovereigntist Pierrette Venne, later elected as a Bloc Québécois MP, called for the book to be banned.[17] Daniel Latouche compared the book to Mein Kampf.[18]

Nadia Khouri believes that there was a discriminatory undertone in the reaction to Richler, noting that some of his critics characterized him as "not one of us"[19] or that he was not a "real Quebecer".[20] She found that some critics had misquoted his work; for instance, in reference to the mantra of the entwined church and state coaxing females to procreate as vastly as possible, a section in which he said that Quebec women were treated like "sows" was misinterpreted to suggest that Richler thought they were sows.[21] Québécois writers who thought critics had overreacted included Jean-Hugues Roy, Étienne Gignac, Serge-Henri Vicière, and Dorval Brunelle. His defenders asserted that Mordecai Richler may have been wrong on certain specific points, but was certainly not racist nor anti-Québécois.[22] Nadia Khouri acclaimed Richler for his courage and for attacking the orthodoxies of Quebec society.[21] He has been described as "the most prominent defender of the rights of Quebec's anglophones".[23]

Some commentators were alarmed about the strong controversy over Richler's book, saying that it underlines and acknowledges the persistence of anti-Semitism among sections of the Quebec population.[24] Richler received death threats;[25] an anti-Semitic Francophone journalist yelled at one of his sons, "[I]f your father was here, I'd make him relive the Holocaust right now!" An editorial cartoon in L'actualité compared him to Hitler.[26] One critic controversially claimed that Richler had been paid by Jewish groups to write his critical essay on Quebec. His defenders believed this was evoking old stereotypes of Jews. When leaders of the Jewish community were asked to dissociate themselves from Richler, the journalist Frances Kraft said that indicated that they did not consider Richler as part of the Quebec "tribe" because he was Anglo-speaking and Jewish.[27]

About the same time, Richler announced he had founded the "Impure Wool Society," to grant the Prix Parizeau to a distinguished non-Francophone writer of Quebec. The group's name plays on the expression Québécois pure laine, typically used to refer to Quebecker with extensive French-Canadian multi-generational ancestry (or "pure wool"). The prize (with an award of $3000) was granted twice: to Benet Davetian in 1996 for The Seventh Circle, and David Manicom in 1997 for Ice in Dark Water.[28]

In 2010, Montreal city councillor Marvin Rotrand presented a 4,000-signature petition calling on the city to honour Richler on the 10th anniversary of his death with the renaming of a street, park or building in Richler's old Mile End neighbourhood. The council initially denied an honour to Richler, saying it would sacrifice the heritage of their neighbourhood.[29] In response to the controversy, the City of Montreal announced it was to renovate and rename a gazebo in his honour. For various reasons, the project stalled for several years but was completed in 2016.[30]

Representation in other media[edit]

Awards and recognition[edit]

  • 1969 Governor General's Award for Cocksure and Hunting Tigers Under Glass.
  • 1972 Governor General's Award for St. Urbain's Horseman.
  • 1975 Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy for screenplay of The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.
  • 1976 Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award: Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang.
  • 1976 Ruth Schwartz Children's Book Award for Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang.
  • 1990 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Solomon Gursky was Here
  • 1995 Mr. Christie's Book Award (for the best English book age 8 to 11) for Jacob Two-Two's First Spy Case.
  • 1997 The Giller Prize for Barney's Version.
  • 1998 Canadian Booksellers Associations "Author of the Year" award.
  • 1998 Stephen Leacock Award for Humour for Barney's Version
  • 1998 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book (Canada & Caribbean region) for Barney's Version
  • 1998 The QSPELL Award for Barney's Version.
  • 2000 Honorary Doctorate of Letters, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec.
  • 2000 Honorary Doctorate, Bishop's University, Lennoxville, Quebec.
  • 2001 Companion of the Order of Canada
  • 2004 Number 98 on the CBC's television show about great Canadians, The Greatest Canadian
  • 2004 Barney's Version was chosen for inclusion in Canada Reads 2004, championed by author Zsuzsi Gartner.
  • 2006 Cocksure was chosen for inclusion in Canada Reads 2006, championed by actor and author Scott Thompson
  • 2011 Richler posthumously received a star on Canada's Walk of Fame and was inducted at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto.[31]
  • 2011 In the same month he was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame, the City of Montreal announced that a gazebo in Mount Royal Park would be refurbished and named in his honour. The structure overlooks Jeanne-Mance Park, where Richler played in his youth.[32]
  • 2015 Richler was given his due as a "citizen of honour" in the city of Montreal. The Mile End Library, in the neighbourhood he portrayed in The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, was given his name.[33]

Published works[edit]

Novels[edit]

Short story collection[edit]

Fiction for children[edit]

Jacob Two-Two series[34]
  • Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang (Alfred A. Knopf, 1975), illustrated by Fritz Wegner
  • Jacob Two-Two and the Dinosaur (1987)
  • Jacob Two-Two's First Spy Case (1995)

Travel[edit]

  • Images of Spain (1977)
  • This Year in Jerusalem (1994)

Essays[edit]

  • Hunting Tigers Under Glass: Essays and Reports (1968)
  • Shovelling Trouble (1972)
  • Notes on an Endangered Species and Others (1974)
  • The Great Comic Book Heroes and Other Essays (1978)
  • Home Sweet Home: My Canadian Album (1984)
  • Broadsides (1991)
  • Belling the Cat (1998)
  • Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! Requiem for a Divided Country (1992)
  • Dispatches from the Sporting Life (2002)

Nonfiction[edit]

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

Anthologies[edit]

  • Canadian Writing Today (1970)
  • The Best of Modern Humour (1986) (U.S. title: The Best of Modern Humor)
  • Writers on World War II (1991)

Film scripts[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Mordecai Richler Biography". eNotes.com. Retrieved May 15, 2015.
  2. ^ a b Depalma, Anthony (July 4, 2001). "Mordecai Richler, Novelist Who Showed a Street-Smart Montreal, Is Dead at 70". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 5, 2021.
  3. ^ a b Foran, Charles (March 4, 2015). "Mordecai Richler". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada.
  4. ^ Brownfeld, Allan C. (March 22, 1999). "Growing intolerance threatens humane Jewish tradition". Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Retrieved September 26, 2016.
  5. ^ McNay, Michael (July 5, 2001). "Mordecai Richler". The Guardian.
  6. ^ "Nancy Richler novel meticulous study of Jews in postwar Montreal". Winnipeg Free Press. April 24, 2012.
  7. ^ Brown, Ruseell (1997). "Richler, Mordecai". In Benson, Eugene; Toye, William (eds.). The Oxford Companion to Literature (2 ed.). Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press. p. 1000.
  8. ^ "Mordecai Richler: an obituary tribute by Robert Fulford". Robertfulford.com. July 4, 2001. Retrieved August 20, 2011.
  9. ^ Steyn, Mark (September 2001). "Mordecai Richler, 1931–2001". New Criterion. 20 (1): 123–128.
  10. ^ See the following authored by Richler:
     • "Fighting words". New York Times Book Review. Vol. 146, no. 50810. June 1, 1997. p. 8.
     • "Tired of separatism". The New York Times. Vol. 144, no. 49866. October 31, 1994. p. A19.
     • "O Quebec". The New Yorker. Vol. 70, no. 15. May 30, 1994. p. 50.
     • "On Language: Gros Mac attack". New York Times Magazine. Vol. 142, no. 49396. July 18, 1993. p. 10.
     • "Language Problems". Atlantic Monthly. Vol. 251, no. 6. June 1983. p. 10-18.
     • "OH! CANADA! Lament for a divided country". Atlantic Monthly. Vol. 240, no. 6. December 1977. p. 34.
  11. ^ a b Conlogue, Ray (June 26, 2002). "Oh Canada, Oh Quebec, Oh Richler". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved May 31, 2018.
  12. ^ Richler, Mordecai (December 1977). "OH! CANADA! Lament for a divided country". Atlantic Monthly. Vol. 240, no. 6. p. 34.
  13. ^ "Video: Controverse autour du livre Oh Canada Oh Québec!". Archives. Société Radio-Canada. March 31, 1992. Retrieved September 22, 2006.
  14. ^ Foglia, Pierre (December 16, 2000). "Faut arrêter de freaker". La Presse.
  15. ^ Smith, Donald (1997). D'une nation à l'autre: des deux solitudes à la cohabitation. Montreal: Éditions Alain Stanké. p. 56.
  16. ^ Smart, Pat (May 1992). "Daring to Disagree with Mordecai". Canadian Forum. p. 8.
  17. ^ Johnson, William (July 7, 2001). "Oh, Mordecai. Oh, Quebec". The Globe and Mail.
  18. ^ "Le Grand Silence". Le Devoir. March 28, 1992.
  19. ^ Richler, Trudeau, "Lasagne et les autres", October 22, 1991. Le Devoir
  20. ^ Sarah Scott, Geoff Baker, "Richler Doesn't Know Quebec, Belanger Says; Writer 'Doesn't Belong', Chairman of Panel on Quebec's Future Insists", The Gazette, September 20, 1991.
  21. ^ a b Khouri, Nadia. Qui a peur de Mordecai Richler. Montréal: Éditions Balzac, 1995. ISBN 9782921425537
  22. ^ "Hitting below the belt.", By: Barbara Amiel, Maclean's, August 13, 2001, Vol. 114, Issue 33
  23. ^ Ricou, above
  24. ^ Khouri, above, Scott et al., above, Delisle cited in Kraft, below
  25. ^ Noah Richler, "A Just Campaign", The New York Times, October 7, 2001, p. AR4
  26. ^ Michel Vastel, "Le cas Richler". L'actualité, November 1, 1996, p.66
  27. ^ Frances Kraft, "Esther Delisle", The Canadian Jewish News, April 1, 1993, p. 6
  28. ^ Siemens: "Canadian Literary Awards and Prizes", The Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada Archived February 5, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
  29. ^ "Mordecai Richler would have enjoyed Montreal memorial controversy". Toronto Star. March 13, 2015. Retrieved May 15, 2015.
  30. ^ "Mordecai Richler gazebo finally finished". CBC News. September 12, 2016.
  31. ^ "Press Release: Canada's Walk of Fame Announces the 2011 Inductees". Canada's Walk of Fame. June 28, 2011. Archived from the original on July 10, 2011. Retrieved June 28, 2011.
  32. ^ Peritz, Ingrid (June 24, 2011). "Mordecai Richler to be honoured with gazebo on Mount Royal". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved December 25, 2011.
  33. ^ "Editorial: At last, a Richler library". Montrealgazette.com. March 12, 2015. Retrieved May 15, 2015.
  34. ^ The Jacob Two-Two books are about 100 pages each. Two of them are Richler's only works in Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB), which catalogues them as juvenile fantasy novels and reports multiple cover artists and interior illustrators.
      "Mordecai Richler – Summary Bibliography". ISFDB. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  35. ^ "The Street". National Film Board of Canada. Retrieved August 21, 2012.

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

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