Jump to content

Helen Weinzweig

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Onel5969 (talk | contribs) at 09:36, 7 August 2023 (clean up, typo(s) fixed: 1945-2003 → 1945–2003). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Helen Weinzweig
BornHelen Tenenbaum
May 21, 1915
Radom, Poland
DiedFebruary 11, 2010
Toronto, Ontario
Occupationnovelist, short stories
NationalityCanadian
Period1960s-1980s
Notable worksBasic Black with Pearls, A View from the Roof
SpouseJohn Weinzweig

Helen Weinzweig (1915–2010), née Tenenbaum, was a Canadian writer.[1] The author of two novels and a short story collection, her novel Basic Black with Pearls won the Toronto Book Award in 1981, and her short story collection A View from the Roof was a shortlisted nominee for the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction in 1989.[1]

Born in Poland in 1915, she emigrated to Canada at age nine with her mother,[1] and married composer John Weinzweig on July 12, 1940.[2] She published her first short story, "Surprise!", in Canadian Forum in 1967,[1] and her debut novel Passing Ceremony was published in 1973.[1] She came to be regarded as one of Canada's first important feminist writers.[1] Her style was marked by experimental forms with some aspects of metafiction; in her short story "Journey to Porquis", a writer on a train trip realizes that all of his fellow passengers are characters in his novel.[1]

Weinzweig also wrote and produced a one-act play, My Mother's Luck,[3] and several of her short stories in A View from the Roof were adapted for stage and CBC Radio broadcast by playwright Dave Carley.[3]

Weinzweig died in 2010, aged 94.[1]

Works

  • Passing Ceremony (1973)
  • Basic Black with Pearls (1981)
    • in German, transl. Brigitte Jakobeit: Schwarzes Kleid mit Perlen. Wagenbach, Berlin 2019
  • My mother's luck (1983)
  • A View from the Roof (1989)
  • Nero e perle (1994)

Archive

Helen Weinzweig papers, Coll. 1945–2003 at the library, University of Toronto

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h "Helen Weinzweig, Toronto author of surreal fiction, dead at age 94". The Globe and Mail, February 16, 2010.
  2. ^ John Beckwith; Brian Cherney. "A Self-Made Composer". Weinzweig Essays on His life and Music. p. 9.
  3. ^ a b "Helen Weinzweig (1915 - 2010)". Playwrights Guild of Canada, April 1, 2010.