The Incomparable Atuk Paperback by Mordecai Richler

Product Details

• Publisher: New Canadian Library (1989-10-01)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 192 pages
• ISBN-13: 9780771099731
• Item Weight: 113.4 grams
• Dimensions: 6.94 x 4.22 x 0.52 cm

Transplanted to Toronto from his native Baffin Island, Atuk the poet is an unlikely overnight success. Eagerly adapting to a society steeped in pretension, bigotry, and greed, Atuk soon abandons the literary life in favour of more lucrative—and hazardous—schemes.

Richler’s hilarious and devastating satire lampoons the self-deceptions of “the Canadian identity” and derides the hypocrisy of a nation that seeks cultural independence by slavishly pursuing the American dream.

About the Author

Mordecai Richler was born in Montreal, Quebec, in 1931. Raised there in the working-class Jewish neighbourhood around St. Urbain Street, he attended Sir George Williams College (now a part of Concordia University). In 1951 he left Canada for Europe, settling in London, England, in 1954. Eighteen years later, he moved back to Montreal.

Novelist and journalist, screenwriter and editor, Richler, one of our most acclaimed writers, spent much of his career chronicling, celebrating, and criticizing the Montreal and the Canada of his youth. Whether the settings of his fiction are St. Urbain Street or European capitals, his major characters never forsake the Montreal world that shaped them. His most frequent voice is that of the satirist, rendering an honest account of his times with care and humour.

Richler’s many honours include the Giller Prize, two Governor General’s Awards, and innumerable other awards for fiction, journalism, and screenwriting. He died in Montreal in 2001.