Mordecai Richler was born in Montreal, Quebec, on January 27, 1931, to Moses Isaac Richler, a scrap-metal dealer, and Lily Leah Rosenberg, who published

The Errand Runner: Reflections of a Rabbi’s Daughter

. She and her own father, a rabbinical scholar who settled in Canada in 1904 after fleeing the pogroms of Eastern Europe, were of some influence in setting a literary precedent for Richler. Raised during the Depression in a working-class Jewish area, the St. Urbain Street neighbourhood of Montreal, Richler attended Baron Byng, a predominantly Jewish public high school. In 1948, he attended Sir George Williams College (later Concordia University) where he majored in English. During this period, he also worked as a reporter on a part-time basis for the

Montreal Herald

.

Eschewing academic

1953 words

Citation: Morra, Linda. "Mordecai Richler". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 March 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3773, accessed 19 March 2024.]

3773 Mordecai Richler 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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