Helen 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]

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

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. "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. "Helen Weinzweig (1915 - 2010)". Playwrights Guild of Canada, April 1, 2010.
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