Geboortedatum: 1928-05-21
Overlijdensdatum: 1992-06-01
Geslacht: female
Nationaliteit: Canada
Geboorteplaats: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Plaats van overlijden: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Woonplaatsen: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Opleiding: University of Manitoba (BA, 1949)
Beroepen: novelist
memoirist
letter writer
playwright
essayist
poet (toon alle 7)
writing professor
Prijzen en onderscheidingen: Guggenheim Fellowship
Korte biografie: Adele Wiseman was born in Winnipeg, Canada, to Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine. Her parents were part of the secular, Yiddish-speaking community in the North End of the city. In 1949, she earned a B.A. in English Literature and Psychology from the University of Manitoba. She spent the years from 1950 to 1952 living abroad and writing her first novel, The Sacrifice (1956). To support herself, she took various jobs such as a social worker in London and a teacher and summer camp supervisor in Rome. The Sacrifice, published on her return to Canada, was one of the first novels in English to deal with the Holocaust and won her wide acclaim and the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, Canada's top literary prize. In 1969, she married Dmitry Stone, a biologist, with whom she had a daughter. Her second novel, Crackpot, appeared in 1974. Other works included Old Woman at Play (1978), a memoir that was adapted for the stage, and Memoirs of a Book Molesting Childhood and Other Essays (1987). She also wrote plays, poems, and stories for children. After her death, a collection of her letters with her friend Margaret Laurence was published as Selected Letters of Margaret Laurence and Adele Wiseman (1997), along with a memorial volume called We Who Can Fly (1997), edited by Elizabeth Greene. She taught or served as writer in residence at the University of Manitoba, Macdonald College of McGill University, Sir George Williams (now Concordia) and Trent universities, the universities of Western Ontario, Prince Edward Island, and Windsor. From 1987 to 1991 she headed the Writing Programme at the Banff Centre. Her work received many honors and awards, including the Canadian Booksellers Association Book Award (1974); the J. I. Segal Foundation Award (1974 and 1988); and the Three Guineas Charitable Foundation Agency Award (1984–1985).

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Memoirs of a book molesting childhood and other essays door Adele Wiseman

I found Adele Wiseman’s story of her childhood very interesting and enlightening. Well worth reading. The point of view of a not-privileged child struggling through school is not often given a voice.

A few of the other essays are more topical, current-events productions, and could use annotation or introduction to provide context. The essay on her trip to China in 1981 when such trips were still a propaganda tool for the still-Maoist, hard-line government to tout China’s “Foreign Friends”, is both superficial and heartbreaking.

“Lucky Mom”, her mother’s end-of-life story, is an important and valuable testimony. With the first essay, it brackets beginning and end of life. It’s followed by a story about the frustrations of owning a home and dealing with bureaucracy while plagued by anonymous and malicious neighbours reporting imaginary or trivial bylaw violations. To her credit, she doesn’t blame racism or antisemitism; perhaps because her malicious neighbours, unlike ours in the same city in 1979, didn’t make an obvious statement by adorning the porch with neo-Nazi literature and excrement.

The book has a good index, always a plus in a wide-ranging collection of essays.… (meer)

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muumi | Sep 30, 2022 |

The Sacrifice door Adele Wiseman

Themes are dark, with obvious Biblical undertones that leads to a surprise ending.

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charlie68 | 1 andere bespreking | Oct 14, 2019 |

Crackpot door Adele Wiseman

I read this book as my November Canadian classic read and I can’t believe I had never heard of it before, let alone never read it. It is definitely a classic and the writing is wonderful. The main character, to quote Margaret Laurence, “is one of the greatest characters in our literature”.

Hoda is the daughter of Jewish Russian immigrants living in Winnipeg’s North End. Her parents were married in Russia when the plague (cholera I believe) was rampaging through the country. There was a belief that if two people who were disabled (either mentally or physically) were married in the Jewish cemetery the plague would be halted. Hoda’s mother, Rahel, had a slight hump and her father, Danile, was blind so they were the chosen two and the village promised to support them in return. The plague in fact did stop although Danile’s own mother died of it. However, soon enough the village grew tired of supporting them and Danile’s uncle in Winnipeg agreed to sponsor them to come to Winnipeg. The uncle was not aware that Danile was blind and he was not pleased to have a family with no way of earning a living to support. Rahel started cleaning houses to earn their keep and Rahel, Danile and Hoda (just a baby when they left Russia) moved into a rundown shack. Rahel would take Hoda with her when she worked and to keep her quiet she fed her all the time. Hoda was a fat infant who grew into a fat young girl of whom other children made fun. When Hoda was still quite young Rahel died of cancer thus taking the family’s sole source of income away. Danile’s uncle decided that the best way of supporting them would be to donate large sums to the Jewish orphanage and Old Folks home and have Hoda move into the orphanage and Danile move into the seniors’ home. Hoda and Danile refused to be separated and the uncle washed his hands of them. Danile had started to learn how to do basket weaving before Rahel’s death and he felt he could continue to do that at home to support Hoda and himself. However, the basket weaving didn’t bring in much money. Hoda started to clean houses to earn some money too but there was never enough. The local butcher gave Hoda scraps of meat if she would touch his penis and cause him to ejaculate. It was not far from that to Hoda having sex with young men for payment. She was so innocent that she thought she could not get pregnant from that because she was not having intercourse with just one man. Of course, the inevitable happened and she did get pregnant but she didn’t realize she was pregnant. One night she woke from sleep with labour pains and she gave birth by herself without even waking her father. The baby boy was alive so Hoda decided to take him to the Jewish orphanage to which her uncle had donated so much money. She left a note that led people to think the child was the illegitimate offspring of the Prince of Wales who had visited Winnipeg at the appropriate time. The book continues with the lives of Hoda, Danile and Hoda’s son, David (also called Pipick because of his out-turned belly button that resulted from Hoda’s inexpert tying of the umbilical cord).

The story in Winnipeg starts before the First World War and continues past World War II. Hoda is a witness and participant in the Winnipeg General Strike and her involvement with the Communist Party continues. So the book is also a revelation of the Jewish experience in the North End of Winnipeg as well as an exploration of Hoda’s unusual lifestyle. Hoda talks quite frankly about her work (probably one of the reasons the book is not read in school) but she persists in keeping her father unaware of it. I’m still not sure after finishing the book if Danile really was that innocent or if he just chose to ignore it. Hoda also talks frankly about being fat, a point of view that is seldom dealt with in literature, particularly not with the acceptance that is so obvious.

Adele Wiseman wrote very few books. This book, written in 1974, and The Sacrifice, which won the Governor General’s award in 1956, are her only adult novels.… (meer)

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gypsysmom | 1 andere bespreking | Aug 25, 2017 |

The Sacrifice door Adele Wiseman

Moving story of Jewish immigrant life in early 20th-century Canada. This narrative of a family struggling to adapt to life in a strange country moves through generations toward its violent and tragic conclusion. The Sacrifice is a mesmerizing novel. Winner of the Governor General's Award in 1956.