Richler, Mordecai << RIHCH luhr, MAWR duh ky >> (1931-2001), was a Canadian novelist. As a boy, Richler lived in a poor Jewish district of Montreal, where he was born on Jan. 27, 1931. His experiences there provided the background for Son of a Smaller Hero (1955) and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1959).
From 1954 to 1972, Richler lived mainly in England. In Cocksure (1968) and St. Urbain’s Horseman (1971), he wrote about Canadians living in Europe. These novels and Joshua Then and Now (1980) are character studies that satirize sophisticated, urban society. Solomon Gursky Was Here (1989) is a comic satire about four generations of a family.
Richler also wrote short stories, motion-picture and television scripts, and children’s books about a boy called Jacob Two-Two. The best of his essays and articles were published as Notes on an Endangered Species and Others (1974) and Broadsides (1990). Barney’s Version (1997) is set against a background of working class Jewish neighborhoods in Montreal and explores the life of a failed writer. Richler described his impressions of Canada in Home Sweet Home (1984) and Oh Canada! Oh Quebec: Requiem for a Divided Country (1992). Richler reported on a trip he made to Israel in 1992 in This Year in Jerusalem (1994). His On Snooker (2001) is a witty examination of the game of snooker. Richler died on July 2, 2001.
