Mordecai Richler – författare

WINNER OF THE 1990 COMMONWEALTH WRITERS PRIZE, SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 1990Since the age of eleven Moses Berger has been obsessed with the Gursky clan, an insanely wealthy, profoundly seductive family of Jewish-Canadian descent. Now a 52-year-old alcoholic boigrapher, Berger is desperately trying to chronicle the stories of their lives, especially that of the mysterious Solomon Gursky, who may or may not have died in a plane crash.A rich, irreverent and exuberant comic masterpiece from the author of The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and St Urbain's Horseman.

The first book to be set in the new Richler typeface, commissioned by Random House of Canada Limited and Jack Rabinovitch in memory of Mordecai.Mordecai Richler’s final book pays homage to his personal heroes and celebrates a writer’s love of sport with his trademark irascibility, humour and acuity. Even while writing his bestselling novels, Mordecai Richler nurtured his obsession with sports, writing brilliantly on ice hockey, baseball, salmon fishing, bodybuilding, and wrestling for such publications as GQ, Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, Inside Sports, Commentary, and The New York Review of Books. Mordecai himself chose the pieces to include in Dispatches from the Sporting Life, and together they give us an intimate portrait of a man who admired the players and prized the struggle of sport -- as much as he enjoyed skewering those who made a mockery of its principles.His encounters with Pete Rose, Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe (“Mr. Elbows…the big guy with the ginger-ale bottle shoulders”) are by turns bizarre, moving and uproarious. Richler travelled with Guy LaFleur’s Montreal Canadiens (“Les Canadiens sont là!”), but also with the “far-from-incomparable” Trail Smoke Eaters to Stockholm for the world hockey championships, where Canadians are “widely known, and widely disliked.”There are wonderful pieces here about Ring Lardner, George Plimpton, Hank Greenberg and lady umpires, and a marvellous essay on his unlimited enthusiasm for the all-inclusive Encyclopedia of Jews in Sports, which includes among its champions Sandy Koufax, “who may well be the greatest pitcher of all time, regardless of race, colour or creed,” as well as one Steve Allan Hertz, an infielder who played five total games in Houston in 1964 and had a batting average of .000.From the Hardcover edition.

Barney Panofsky—Canadian expat, wily lover of women, writer, television producer, raconteur—is finally putting pen to paper so he can rebut the charges about him made in his rival’s autobiography.  Whether it’s ranting about his bohemian misadventures during the 1950’s in Paris, his tumultuous three marriages, or his successful trashy TV company, Totally Unnecessary Productions, he quickly proves that his memory may be slipping, but his bile isn’t.  But when he’s charged with the murder of his own best friend—caught in bed with the second Mrs. Panofsky—Barney’s version of things might not be enough to keep him out of trouble.

Charged with comic energy and a steely disregard for any pieties whatsoever, Barney''s Version is a major Richler novel, the most personal and feeling book of a long and distinguished career.Told in the first person, it gives us the life (and what a life!) of Barney Panofsky--whose trashy TV company, Totally Useless Productions, has made him a small fortune; whose three wives include a martyred feminist icon, a quintessential JCP (Jewish-Canadian Princess), and the incomparable Miriam, the perfect wife, lover, and mother--alas, now married to another man; who recalls with nostalgia and pain his young manhood in the Paris of the early fifties, and his lifelong passion for wine, women, and the Montreal Canadiens; who either did or didn''t murder his best friend, Boogie, after discovering him in bed with The Second Mrs. Panofsky; whose satirical eye for the idiocies of today''s Quebec separatists (as well as for every other kind of political correctness) manages to offend his entire acquaintanceship (and will soon be offending readers everywhere); and whose memory--though not his bile--is, in his sixty-seventh year, definitely slipping . . .From the Hardcover edition.

Poor Jacob Two-Two. Not only must he say everything twice just to be heard over his four brothers and sisters, but he finds himself the prisoner of the dreaded Hooded Fang. What had he done to deserve such a punishment? The worst crime of all – insulting a grown-up! Although he’s small, Jacob is not helpless, especially when The Infamous Two come to his aid.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Mordecai Richlers autobiografisches Meisterwerk erstmals in deutscher ÜbersetzungIn zehn charmanten, tragikomischen, ergreifenden Episoden erzählt Mordecai Richler von seiner Kindheit und Jugend in der jüdischen Welt vonMontreals St. Urbain Street: Von dem Sommer, in dem die Großmutter eigentlich hätte sterben müssen, aber nicht starb. Von Herrn Bambinger,dem Wiener Juden, der jeden Tag auf das Schiff wartet, das Frau und Sohn vor den Nazis in Sicherheit bringen soll. Von Benny Garber, dem zurückgebliebenen Nachbarsjungen, der aus dem Krieg in Europa heimkehrt und doch nicht mehr ins Leben findet. Und davon, wie einmal ein Times-Artikel über einen Atomspion das Universum der St. Urbain Street erschütterte. Humorvoll, tragisch, weise und voller Nostalgie: ein Meisterwerk derliterarischen Erinnerung.

Blanco, anglosajón, protestante y director de Oriole Press, una de las editoriales más prestigiosas y antiguas de toda Inglaterra. La vida de Mortimer Griffin parece un camino de rosas plagado de éxitos. Pero estamos en la Swinging London, en los años 60, una década de cambios rápidos y bizarros que pondrán en duda todas las certezas de Mortimer. Su vida entra poco a poco en un laberinto donde aparecen personajes cada vez más extravagantes: su viejo amigo Ziggy Spicehandler, director de películas experimentales, un periodista que lo acusa de ser un judío renegado, la profesora de la escuela de su hijo de ocho años que decide representar una obra del Marqués De Sade y por último el Creador de Estrellas, un magnate del cine americano que acaba de comprar Oriole Press.

Fins i tot els seus amics estarien d''acord que Barney Panofsky és un "marit maltractador, un falsari intel·lectual, un productor de merdes, un borratxo amb inclinació a la violència i segurament també un assassí. Però, quan els seus pitjors enemics ho intenten fer públic, Barney comença a escriure les seves pròpies memò­ries, i és així com el veurem passar de la crisi a l''èxit, dels baixos fons a la bona societat a Montreal, París i Londres. Les seves proeses acaben però amb un escàndol notable.