Howard Jacobson and David Herman
In Conversation on the Influences Shaping Britain’s ‘Most Famous Jewish Writer’
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Summary
For the past forty years, Howard Jacobson has established himself as Britain’s most popular Jewish writer, best known for novels like Kalooki Nights (2006), The Mighty Walzer (2009), and The Finkler Question(2010). David Herman has long been an admirer of Jacobson’s work and he will be in conversation with Jacobson about humour, Jewishness, and the writers who have influenced his work.
Howard Jacobson
Born in Manchester, England in 1942, Howard Jacobson is an award-winning novelist and broadcaster educated at Cambridge University. He lectured at the University of Sydney for three years before returning to England where he taught English at Selwyn College. His novel, The Mighty Walzer (1999), set in the Jewish community in Manchester during the 1950s, won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic writing and the Jewish Quarterly Literary Prize for Fiction in 2000. Howard’s recent novels include The Finkler Question (2010), winner of the 2010 Man Booker Prize for Fiction; Zoo Time (2012); J (2014); Shylock Is My Name (2016); and Pussy (2017). His two nonfiction books, Roots Schmoots: Journeys Among Jews (1993), an exploration of his own Jewish roots, and Seriously Funny: From the Ridiculous to the Sublime (1997), an analysis of comedy and its functions, inspired related television series.
David Herman
David Herman is a freelance writer based in London. Over the past 20 years he has written almost a thousand articles, essays, and reviews on Jewish history and literature for publications including the Jewish Chronicle, the Jewish Quarterly, Jewish Renaissance, the Guardian, the New Statesman, and Prospect. He has taught courses on Jewish culture for the London Jewish Cultural Centre and JW3. He is a regular contributor to Jewish Book Week, the Association of Jewish Refugees, and the Insiders/Outsiders Festival on the contribution of Jewish refugees to British culture.