• [32] Published works Novels[edit] • The Acrobats (1954) (also published as Wicked We Love, July 1955) • Son of a Smaller Hero (1955) • A Choice of Enemies (1957) • The Apprenticeship
  of Duddy Kravitz (1959) • The Incomparable Atuk (1963) • Cocksure (1968) • St. Urbain’s Horseman (1971) • Joshua Then and Now (1980) • Solomon Gursky Was Here (1989) • Barney’s Version (1997) Short story collection[edit] • The Street (1969)
  Fiction for children[edit] Jacob Two-Two series[33] • 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!

• • 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.

• • 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.

• 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.

• Biography 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.

• • 1976 Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award: Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang.

• [26] One critic controversially claimed that Richler had been paid by Jewish groups to write his critical essay on Quebec.

• [9][10] Critics took particular exception to Richler’s well-founded allegations of a long history of anti-Semitism in Quebec.

• He is also well known for the Jacob Two-Two fantasy series for children.

• 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 • Insomnia Is Good for You (1957) (co-written with Lewis Griefer ) • Dearth of a Salesman
  (1957, starring Peter Sellers ) (co-written with Lewis Griefer ) • No Love for Johnnie (1962) (co-written with Nicholas Phipps, based on the novel by Wilfred Fienburgh) • Life at the Top (1965) (screenplay from novel by John Braine) • The
  Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974) (Screenwriters Guild Award and Oscar screenplay nomination) • The Street (1976)[34] (Oscar nomination) • Fun with Dick and Jane (1977, with David Giler & Jerry Belson, from a story by Gerald Gaiser) •
  The Wordsmith (1979) • Joshua Then and Now (1985) • Barney’s Version (2010, screenplay by Michael Konyves, based on Richler’s novel of the same name; Richler wrote an early draft)

• He wrote repeatedly about the Anglophone community of Montreal and especially about his former neighbourhood, portraying it in multiple novels.

• He published seven of his ten novels, as well as considerable journalism, while living in London.

• 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.

• In addition to his fiction, Richler wrote numerous essays about the Jewish community in Canada, and about Canadian and Quebec nationalism.

• • The animator Caroline Leaf created The Street (1976), based on Richler’s 1969 short story of the same name.

• — 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”.

• [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.

• [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!”

• Journalism constituted an important part of his career, bringing him income between novels and films.

• • 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.

• • 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] • 2015 Richler was given his due as a “citizen of honour” in the city of Montreal.

• (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.)

• • In 2003 Jacob Two-Two was adapted into an animated series of the same name loosely based on the titular character of the book series.

• [6] Journalism career Throughout his career, Richler wrote journalistic commentary, and contributed to The Atlantic Monthly, Look, The New Yorker, The American Spectator,
  and other magazines.

• • 1976 Ruth Schwartz Children’s Book Award for Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang.

• 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.

• Another favourite Richler target was the government-subsidized Canadian literary movement of the 1970s and 1980s.

• To a middle-class stranger, it is true, one street would have seemed as squalid as the next.

• Richler was often critical of Quebec but of Canadian federalism as well.

• [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.

• [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.

 

Works Cited

[‘”Mordecai Richler Biography”. eNotes.com. Retrieved May 15, 2015.
o ^ Jump up to: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.
o ^ Jump up to:a b Foran, Charles (March 4, 2015). “Mordecai Richler”. The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada.
o ^ Brownfeld, Allan C. (March 22, 1999). “Growing intolerance threatens humane Jewish tradition”. Washington Report on
Middle East Affairs. Retrieved September 26, 2016.
o ^ McNay, Michael (July 5, 2001). “Mordecai Richler”. The Guardian.
o ^ “Nancy Richler novel meticulous study of Jews in postwar Montreal”. Winnipeg Free Press. April 24, 2012.
o ^ 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.
o ^ “Mordecai Richler: an obituary tribute by Robert Fulford”. Robertfulford.com.
July 4, 2001. Retrieved August 20, 2011.
o ^ Steyn, Mark (September 2001). “Mordecai Richler, 1931–2001”. New Criterion. 20 (1): 123–128.
o ^ 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.
o ^ Jump up to:a
b Conlogue, Ray (June 26, 2002). “Oh Canada, Oh Quebec, Oh Richler”. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved May 31, 2018.
o ^ Richler, Mordecai (December 1977). “OH! CANADA! Lament for a divided country”. Atlantic Monthly. Vol. 240, no. 6. p. 34.
o ^ “Video:
Controverse autour du livre Oh Canada Oh Québec!”. Archives. Société Radio-Canada. March 31, 1992. Retrieved September 22, 2006.
o ^ Foglia, Pierre (December 16, 2000). “Faut arrêter de freaker”. La Presse.
o ^ Smith, Donald (1997). D’une nation
à l’autre: des deux solitudes à la cohabitation. Montreal: Éditions Alain Stanké. p. 56.
o ^ Smart, Pat (May 1992). “Daring to Disagree with Mordecai”. Canadian Forum. p. 8.
o ^ Johnson, William (July 7, 2001). “Oh, Mordecai. Oh, Quebec”. The
Globe and Mail.
o ^ “Le Grand Silence”. Le Devoir. March 28, 1992.
o ^ Richler, Trudeau, “Lasagne et les autres”, October 22, 1991. Le Devoir
o ^ 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.
o ^ Jump up to:a b Khouri, Nadia. Qui a peur de Mordecai Richler. Montréal: Éditions Balzac, 1995. ISBN 9782921425537
o ^ “Hitting below the belt.”, By: Barbara Amiel,
Maclean’s, August 13, 2001, Vol. 114, Issue 33
o ^ Ricou, above
o ^ Khouri, above, Scott et al., above, Delisle cited in Kraft, below
o ^ Noah Richler, “A Just Campaign”, The New York Times, October 7, 2001, p. AR4
o ^ Michel Vastel, “Le
cas Richler”. L’actualité, November 1, 1996, p.66
o ^ Frances Kraft, “Esther Delisle”, The Canadian Jewish News, April 1, 1993, p. 6
o ^ Siemens: “Canadian Literary Awards and Prizes”, The Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada Archived February
5, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
o ^ “Mordecai Richler would have enjoyed Montreal memorial controversy”. Toronto Star. March 13, 2015. Retrieved May 15, 2015.
o ^ “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.
o ^ Peritz, Ingrid (June 24, 2011). “Mordecai Richler to be honoured with gazebo on Mount Royal”. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved December 25, 2011.
o ^
“Editorial: At last, a Richler library”. Montrealgazette.com. March 12, 2015. Retrieved May 15, 2015.
o ^ 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.
o ^ “The Street”. National Film Board of Canada. Retrieved August
21, 2012.
Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sun_sand_sea/7177682195/’]