- EAN13
- 9781771861038
- Éditeur
- Baraka Books
- Date de publication
- 24/03/2017
- Langue
- anglais
- Langue d'origine
- français
- Fiches UNIMARC
- S'identifier
Livre numérique
Born in Hungary in 1975, Akos Verboczy moved to Montreal, Quebec at the age of
11 with his sister and mother, an esthetician, who learned that in Canada
women were willing to pay a fortune ($20) to have their leg hair brutally
ripped out. His story begins in Hungary, where at the age of nine he learned
that he was a Jew too—”half-Jew” to be more accurate. Unlike some who
emigrated from Eastern Europe, Verboczy has no particularly beefs about life
“behind the iron curtain.” He lands in Montreal as James Brown’s Living in
America plays and Rocky knocks the Russian communist boxer flat in Rocky IV.
The good guys he had learned to like were now officially the bad guys. Once in
“America” he discovers that he will be going to French school—after all it is
Québec. But then he learns that Canada is the only “place on the planet where
there’s no prestige in speaking French.” In fifty vignettes and tales that
belie all the clichés about immigration to Québec, he depicts the experience
of embracing a culture and a people who are constantly obliged to reaffirm
their right to exist. A keen young fencer, he identifies with Alexander
Dumas’s d’Artagnan, the outsider who insists that his “heart is musketeer”
though his dress is not. At a time when identity politics are at the fore,
Verboczy’s observations are both enlightening and witty, comforting and yet
challenging, and humorous. He does not hesitate to discuss thorny political
issues such as language laws, anti-Semitism, multiculturalism, values, Québec
sovereignty, and more. Rhapsody in Quebec is an important contribution to
public debate wherever immigration is an issue, be it Quebec, Canada, United
States or on other continents.
11 with his sister and mother, an esthetician, who learned that in Canada
women were willing to pay a fortune ($20) to have their leg hair brutally
ripped out. His story begins in Hungary, where at the age of nine he learned
that he was a Jew too—”half-Jew” to be more accurate. Unlike some who
emigrated from Eastern Europe, Verboczy has no particularly beefs about life
“behind the iron curtain.” He lands in Montreal as James Brown’s Living in
America plays and Rocky knocks the Russian communist boxer flat in Rocky IV.
The good guys he had learned to like were now officially the bad guys. Once in
“America” he discovers that he will be going to French school—after all it is
Québec. But then he learns that Canada is the only “place on the planet where
there’s no prestige in speaking French.” In fifty vignettes and tales that
belie all the clichés about immigration to Québec, he depicts the experience
of embracing a culture and a people who are constantly obliged to reaffirm
their right to exist. A keen young fencer, he identifies with Alexander
Dumas’s d’Artagnan, the outsider who insists that his “heart is musketeer”
though his dress is not. At a time when identity politics are at the fore,
Verboczy’s observations are both enlightening and witty, comforting and yet
challenging, and humorous. He does not hesitate to discuss thorny political
issues such as language laws, anti-Semitism, multiculturalism, values, Québec
sovereignty, and more. Rhapsody in Quebec is an important contribution to
public debate wherever immigration is an issue, be it Quebec, Canada, United
States or on other continents.
S'identifier pour envoyer des commentaires.