Charles Foran Wins Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction

Posted on October 26, 2011

Charles Foran's biography, Mordecai: The Life & Times has won the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction. The book is published by Vintage Canada. It tells the life story of iconic Canadian journalist, essayist and author Mordecai Richler. Richler won many literary awards, as well as awards for his children's books.

Foran wrote the biography with the support of the Richler family. He had full access to the restricted archive of 1,000 letters housed at the University of Calgary.

The jury calls the 800 page book an "epic work of scholarship and energy." The say Mordecai "delivers an authentic portrait of a writer who could be both tragic and gut-busting funny, a loving family man and defender of human rights, who could also snap off barbed quips infuriating both Quebec and anglo nationalists, as well as his fellow writers, and even his own Jewish community in Montreal."

The jury also says, "Mordecai is well written, exciting to read, even-handed, and magisterial."