Mordecai Richler, CC was a Canadian author, 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. His best known works are The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and Barney's Version; his 1989 novel Solomon Gursky Was Here was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 1990. He was also well known for the Jacob Two-Two children's stories. In addition to his fiction, Richler wrote numerous essays about the Jewish community in Canada, and about nationalism as practised by Canadian anglophones and the francophone Qu�b�cois. Arriving as immigrants in Canada when English was the country's sole official language, the Jewish communities in Montreal - a city in the francophone province of Qu�bec - largely acquired English, not French, as a second language after Yiddish. This later put them at odds with some in the Qu�bec nationalist movement, which argued for French as the official language of Qu�bec. His Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! Requiem for a Divided Country, a collection of essays about nationalism and anti-semitism, generated considerable controversy. [More at Wikipedia]

January 27th, 1931 in Montreal  /  Died:   Jul 3rd, 2001