Yiddish for Pirates

Yiddish for Pirates

Gary Barwin

Random House Canada (2016)

Rating: ★★★★★

Tags: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction, Historical, Jewish, Humor & Satire, Humorous, World Literature, Historical Fiction, General Humor

Literature & Fictionttt Genre Fictionttt Historicalttt Jewishttt Humor & Satirettt Humorousttt World Literaturettt Historical Fictionttt General Humorttt

Shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and nominated for the Governor-General's Award for Literature, a hilarious, swashbuckling yet powerful tale of pirates, buried treasure and a search for the Fountain of Youth, told in the ribald, philosophical 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 outstanding New Face of Fiction is filled with Jewish takes on classic pirate tales--fights, prison escapes, and exploits on the high seas--but it's also a tender love story, between Moishe and Sarah, and between Aaron and his "shoulder," Moishe. Rich with puns, colourful language, post-colonial satire and Kabbalistic hijinks,
Yiddish for Pirates
is also a compelling examination of mortality, memory, identity and persecution from one of this country's most talented writers.

From the Hardcover edition.

**

Review

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE
SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S  LITERARY AWARD
NATIONAL BESTSELLER

“Gary Barwin’s new novel combines swashbuckling and stories of the diaspora, told with some of the most original language play since
Ulysses
.” —
Joyland
*
“Simply not like anything else. . . . [
Yiddish for Pirates
is] absolutely marvellous and will woo you, should you let it. . . . With some of the freshest and most whimsical English ever contained between covers,
Yiddish for Pirates
is a language-lover’s dream come true. . . . The breezy and improvisational feel of the words as organized make the book sing like a jazz solo in the hands of a great artist. . . . Few books manage to treat the subjects of identity, conflict, home and honour so fully and so movingly. . . . Barwin strikes a moving, masterful note.
Yiddish for Pirates* has an unmatched spryness in both thought and language. It doesn’t conform well to any category or trope of literature, but instead makes a place as a fresh, new thing that draws from sea shanties and Talmud, history and fantasy, romance, adventure, linguistics, fashion, and the adventure serial of the early days of movies. This book is as irrepressible as my enthusiasm for it. You’ll never read anything else like it, and that’s a shonde.” —
S.
Bear Bergman
, The Globe and Mail
“[R]arely does one encounter a work of Canadian literature this exuberant, impassioned, and enthralled with the very nature and essence of storytelling.
Yiddish for Pirates
is many things: a postmodern pastiche, an episodic picaresque, a compendium of tales competing to see which can stand tallest, and a virtual catalogue of Jewish humour through the ages.” —
Steven W. Beattie,
Quill & Quire 
**

“Gary Barwin is a gifted writer and a whiz-bang storyteller. Both are on vivid display in his hilarious tragicomic epic, 
Yiddish for Pirates
. Narrated by a five-hundred-year-old wisecracking parrot, naturally, this swashbuckling tale had me hanging on for dear life. A wild and wonderful ride.” —
Terry Fallis
, author of
Poles Apart
and
No Relation
“
Yiddish for Pirates
is a rollicking story, a linguistic typhoon, and the most audacious and original novel I’ve read in a long time. Gary Barwin has the imagination of David Mitchell and a galleon full of dictionaries.” —
Emily Schultz
, author of
The Blondes
“What an accomplishment! What an imagination! The wit, the wordplay, and the subversive humour make this a thoroughly original and delightful novel.”  —
Lauren B. Davis
, Scotiabank Giller Prize–nominated author of 
Our Daily Bread
 and 
Against a Darkening Sky

“Fun, funny and entertaining. [
Yiddish for Pirates
is] experimental, interesting and intelligent. . . . On the surface, it’s a pirate story. A rollicking adventure. If you want to dig into language, you can. If you’re looking for a love story, it’s there. But on a deeper level, it’s largely about persecution, which means readers might be surprised to find it’s also hilarious. But it is.” —
The Hamilton Spectator

"This wonderfully written novel takes you through a nautical journey with lots of heart, while providing hilarious commentary on the ideologies that fuelled the Spanish Inquisition. . . . 
Yiddish for Pirates
 . . . should generate many spirited discussions about human nature -- the lessons we've learned, or have not learned, from our collective past." —
Alpha Textbooks
, "Book of the Month"

From the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

GARY BARWIN is a writer, composer, and multimedia artist, and the author of 20 books of poetry, fiction and books for children. His recent books include the short fiction collection
I, Dr Greenblatt, Orthodontist, 251-1457
and the poetry collections
Moon Baboon Canoe
and
The Wild and Unfathomable Always
. A PhD in music composition, Barwin has been Writer-in-Residence at Western University and Young Voices eWriter-in-residence at the Toronto Public Library and has taught creative writing at a number of colleges and universities. Born in Northern Ireland to South African parents of Ashkenazi descent, Barwin moved to Canada as a child. He is married with three adult children, and lives in Hamilton, Ontario.
www.garybarwin.com

From the Hardcover edition.

Also by Gary Barwin

Poetry

Cruelty to Fabulous Animals

Outside the Hat

Raising Eyebrows

frogments from the frag pool: haiku after Basho
(with derek beaulieu)

The Porcupinity of the Stars

The Obvious Flap
(with Gregory Betts)

Franzlations
[
the imaginary Kafka parables
] (with Craig Conley & Hugh Thomas)

O: eleven songs for chorus SATB
(with music by Dennis Bathory-Kitsz)

Moon Baboon Canoe

The Wild and Unfathomable Always

Novella

The Mud Game
(with Stuart Ross)

Short Fiction

Big Red Baby

Doctor Weep and other strange teeth

I, Dr. Greenblatt, Orthodontist, 251-1457

Books for Younger Readers

Seeing Stars

Grandpa’s Snowman
(illustrated by Kitty Macaulay)

The Magic Mustache
(illustrated by Stephane Jorisch)

The Racing Worm Brothers
(illustrated by Kitty Macaulay)

As Editor

Sonosyntactics: Selected and New Poety of Paul Dutton

PUBLISHED BY RANDOM HOUSE CANADA

Copyright © 2016 Gary Barwin

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published in 2016 by Random House Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Distributed in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.

www.penguinrandomhouse.ca

Random House Canada and colophon are registered trademarks.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Barwin, Gary, author
Yiddish for pirates / Gary Barwin.

ISBN 978-0-345-81551-4
eBook ISBN 978-0-345-81553-8

I. Title.

PS8553.A783Y53 2016           C813′.54           C2015-905824-4

Cover image © C.M. Butzer
Interior images: (ship) © Charles H. Keith, 1846. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division; (flourishes) Topographical Atlas of Jefferson County, New York, 1864, by S.N. Beers and D.G. Beers, and Atlas of Steuben County, New York, 1873, by D.G. Beers, both courtesy of the David Rumsey Map Collection,
www.davidrumsey.com