Honouring an author- tribute to Moredecai Richler

He was one of Canada’s internationally renowned authors with his works translated into several languages. Mordecai Richler who died in 2001, was also a screenwriter and well-known and highly respected essayist.

In one of his collections, Belling the Cat (1998) he begins by writing, “I fear I belong to the last generation of novelists who could supplement their incomes, earning life-sustaining cigars and cognac money, by scribbling for the mags.”

Now some 14 years after his death, the city that he loved, Montreal is finally getting around to recognizing him by re-naming a library in his honour.

The reason for the long overdue recognition is a controversy over many of his writings which often brilliantly and factually skewered the francophone separatist movement in Quebec. His book “Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! Requiem for a Divided Country” which spoofed the laws restricting the use of English in the province, was a best seller having originated in an essay in The New Yorker in 1991.

Reaction from the separatist movement was quick and virulent calling for banning of his bookand comparing it to “Mein Kampf”. The latter being somewhat ironic as Richler was proud of his Jewish heritage and often wrote about the long Jewish presence in Montreal.

The separatist movement disingenuously, and unfortunately successfully, extrapolated his satire and biting criticism of its policies and activities as being against all Francophones and being anti-Quebec, often through misrepresentation and misquotes of his writing. This led to an unwarranted backlash against the author who in fact loved Montreal, it’s diversity, and it’s French language and culture.

The province, which in 1996 gave a state funeral to the nationalist poet Gaston Miron, a first for a literary personage, barely noticed the passing of Richler. Montreal, his beloved home city originally proposed naming an run-down alleyway after the writer, later suggesting an equally dilapited gazebo.

Now 14 years later, Mayor Denis Coderre announced the renaming of the library. After the announcement Richler’s son said his Jewish father would have loved the irony of a former Anglican church full of French-language books being named in his honour.

Jacob Richler added, “”Make no mistake, my father loved this city — foibles and all. Maybe foibles especially”.

Richler’s internationally successful best-selling novels include Duddy Kravitz (1959), Solomon Gursky Was Here (1980), Barney’s Version (1997) and his children’s series of Jacob Two-Two.