Mordecai Richler

Mordecai Richler, CC (January 27, 1931 – July 3, 2001) 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 (1959) and Barney's Version (1997); 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 nationalism as practised by Canadian Anglophones and the Francophone Québecois. Arriving as immigrants in Canada when English was often viewed as the sole official language (although Canada was officially a bilingual country), the Jewish communities in Montreal and Quebec largely became English speakers after using Yiddish. This later put them at odds with some in the Quebec nationalist movement, which argued for French as the official language of Quebec. His Oh, Canada! Oh, Quebec!: Requiem for a Divided Nation (1992), a collection of essays about nationalism and anti-semitism, generated considerable controversy.