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Sunday, June 11, 2017

2017 Stephen Leacock Medal Winner

Yesterday evening, the 2017 winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Canadian Humour was announced.

Gary Barwin won this year’s award and its $15,000 prize money for his book, Yiddish for Pirates, a tale of pirates, buried treasure, and a search for the Fountain of Youth, told in the voice of a 500-year-old Jewish parrot.

Set in the years around 1492, Yiddish for Pirates recounts the compelling story of Moishe, a Bar Mitzvah boy who leaves home to join a ship's crew, where he meets Aaron, the polyglot parrot who becomes his near-constant companion.  From a present-day Florida nursing home, this wisecracking yet poetic bird guides us through a world of pirate ships, Yiddish jokes and treasure maps.  But Inquisition Spain is a dangerous time to be Jewish, and Moishe joins a band of hidden Jews trying to preserve some forbidden books.  He falls in love with a young woman, Sarah; though they are separated by circumstance, Moishe's wanderings are motivated as much by their connection as by his quest for loot and freedom. When all Jews are expelled from Spain, Moishe travels to the Caribbean with the ambitious Christopher Columbus, a self-made man who loves his creator.  Moishe eventually becomes a pirate and seeks revenge on the Spanish while seeking the ultimate booty: the Fountain of Youth.

This novel was also shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and nominated for the Governor-General's Award for Literature. 

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