Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!: Requiem for a Divided Country

Novelist-screenwriter Richler, a native of Montreal, predicts a mass exodus of English speakers if a majority of Quebecers opt for independence from Canada in an October 1992 referendum, creating a separate, debt-ridden, predominantly French-speaking nation. If the separatists win, it will be a sad day for Canada, he asserts in this scathing critique of the Francophone Quebecois nationalist movement. Far from being oppressed, he declares, the French-speaking Quebecers constitute a privileged, xenophobic group that promotes divisiveness and imposes absurdly restrictive laws designed to preserve French as the language of the workplace and public discourse. Recalling his upbringing in a working-class Jewish community, Richler charges that from its inception French-Canadian nationalism has been tainted by racism and anti-Semitism. This is a profound, disturbing look at a crisis that could give birth to the world's 18th-largest country. BOMC altenate. (May)