This hilarious novel is an inside portrait of orthodox, post-Holocaust Judaism in a place that it never expected to be. It's the story of Yoine Levkes, boy hasid of the Canadian Prairies, his refugee parents...confronted with dying people, and ailing culture, the perils of near orphanhood, the allures of Sabina Mandelbroit...too religious to be normal and too normal not to realize this...Humor, satire, irony...and more. It's all here in Michael Wex's first and only novel - Shlepping the Exile which has also been publishing in German - but, of course, by a Swiss publisher!
Author of Born to Kvetch, columnist, bon vivant and raconteur, Michael Wex has been called "a Yiddish national treasure;" Born to Kvetch, the bestselling book ever written about Yiddish, was hailed by The New York Times as "wise, witty and altogether wonderful."
A native of Lethbridge, Alberta, Wex has worked in virtually every area of contemporary Yiddish. Some of his songs have been recorded by such klezmer bands as Sukke, The Flying Bulgars, and 2007 Grammy winners, The Klezmatics.
Wex's teaching and lecture activities-a unique combination of learning, stand-up comedy and probing investigation into the nature of Yiddish and Yiddishkayt-have taken him from Toronto to Budapest, and to many points in between. His approach is so unique and appealing that his annual series of classes at Klezkamp (a yearly Yiddish cultural event in upstate New York) has been renamed Wexology-and not at Wex's instigation. The only complaint ever heard is that people are enjoying themselves so much that they forget to take notes.
You can find Michael Wex at www.michaelwex.com
