Mordecai Richler 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.
Jane Urquhart, LL.D is a Canadian novelist and poet. She is the internationally acclaimed author of seven award-winning novels, three books of poetry and numerous short stories. As a novelist, Urquhart is well known for her evocative style which blends history with the present day. Her first novel, The Whirlpool, gained her international recognition when she became the first Canadian to win France's prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger. Her subsequent novels were even more successful. Away, published in 1993, won the Trillium Award and was a national bestseller. In 1997, her fourth novel, The Underpainter, won the Governor General's Literary Award.
Canadian literature is the literature of a multicultural country, written in languages including Canadian English, Canadian French, Indigenous languages, and many others such as Canadian Gaelic. Influences on Canadian writers are broad both geographically and historically, representing Canada's diversity in culture and region.
Irving Peter Layton, OC was a Romanian-born Canadian poet. He was known for his "tell it like it is" style which won him a wide following, but also made him enemies. As T. Jacobs notes in his biography (2001), Layton fought Puritanism throughout his life:
Layton's work had provided the bolt of lightning that was needed to split open the thin skin of conservatism and complacency in the poetry scene of the preceding century, allowing modern poetry to expose previously unseen richness and depth.
Peter John Gzowski, known colloquially as "Mr. Canada", or "Captain Canada", was a Canadian broadcaster, writer and reporter, most famous for his work on the CBC radio shows This Country in the Morning and Morningside. His first biographer argued that Gzowski's contribution to Canadian media must be considered in the context of efforts by a generation of Canadian nationalists to understand and express Canada's cultural identity. Gzowski wrote books, hosted television shows, and worked at a number of newspapers and at Maclean's magazine. Gzowski was known for a friendly, warm, interviewing style.
Marian Ruth Engel was a Canadian novelist and a founding member of the Writers' Union of Canada. Her most famous and controversial novel was Bear (1976), a tale of erotic love between an archivist and a bear.
Events from the year 1968 in Canada.
John Gordon "Jack" McClelland CC was a Canadian publisher. He was known for promoting Canadian writers as president of the McClelland and Stewart publishing house.
McClelland & Stewart Limited is a Canadian publishing company. It is owned by Penguin Random House of Canada, a branch of Penguin Random House, the international book publishing division of German media giant Bertelsmann.
Earle Alfred Birney was a Canadian poet and novelist, who twice won the Governor General's Award, Canada's top literary honour, for his poetry.
Alfred Wellington Purdy was a 20th-century Canadian free verse poet. Purdy's writing career spanned fifty-six years. His works include thirty-nine books of poetry; a novel; two volumes of memoirs and four books of correspondence, in addition to his posthumous works. He has been called the nation's "unofficial poet laureate" and "a national poet in a way that you only find occasionally in the life of a culture."
The New Canadian Library is a publishing imprint of the Canadian company McClelland and Stewart. The series aims to present classic works of Canadian literature in paperback. Each work published in the series includes a short essay by another notable Canadian writer, discussing the historical context and significance of the work. These essays were originally forewords, but after McClelland and Stewart's 1985 sale to Avie Bennett, the prefatory material was abandoned and replaced by afterwords.
Elizabeth Grace Hay is a Canadian novelist and short story writer.
Charles William Foran is a Canadian writer in Toronto, Ontario.
Joshua Then and Now is a Canadian novel written by Mordecai Richler, published in 1980 by McClelland and Stewart. A semi-autobiographical novel, the book is based his life on his neighborhood growing up in Montreal, Quebec, and tells of the life of a writer. Richler later adapted the novel into the feature film Joshua Then and Now, starring James Woods, Alan Arkin, and Gabrielle Lazure; directed by Ted Kotcheff who had previously directed Richler's The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.
The Incomparable Atuk is a satirical novel by Canadian author Mordecai Richler. It was first published in 1963, by McClelland and Stewart. The novel was published as Stick Your Neck Out in the United States. The Incomparable Atuk tells the story of a Canadian Inuit, who is transplanted to Toronto and quickly adopts the greed and pretensions of the big city.
The Street is a collection of short stories by Mordecai Richler. It was originally published by McClelland and Stewart in 1969. The stories take place on Saint Urbain Street in Montreal.
Mortimer Griffin and Shalinsky is a 1985 National Film Board of Canada short film written by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Mordecai Richler and directed by Mort Ransen. It is about an eccentric Jewish intellectual who accuses his teacher of hiding his Jewish identity. The film is based on Richler's 1978 short story, "Mortimer Griffin, Shalinsky and How they Settled the Jewish Question".
St. Urbain's Horseman is the seventh novel by Canadian author Mordecai Richler. First published in 1971 by McClelland & Stewart, it won the Governor General's Award for 1971.
Bear is a novel by Canadian author Marian Engel, published in 1976. It won the Governor General's Literary Award the same year. It is Engel's fifth novel, and her most famous. The story tells of a lonely archivist sent to work in northern Ontario, where she enters into a sexual relationship with a bear. The book has been called "the most controversial novel ever written in Canada".
