George Jonas

George Jonas (1935-2016). Courtesy Cormorant Books.

George Jonas
Born	June 15, 1935(1935-Template:MONTHNUMBER-15) Budapest, Hungary
Died	January 15, 1935(1935-Template:MONTHNUMBER-15) (aged -81)
Occupation	Writer and columnist
Nationality	Canadian
Notable work(s)	Vengeance (1984)
Notable award(s)	1978 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Fact Crime book
Spouse(s)	Barbara Amiel
Influenced films--the Sword of Gideon (1986) and Munich (2005)

George Jonas (June 15, 1935 - January 10, 2016) was a Hungarian-born Canadian poet, non-fiction writer, and columnist.

Life

Jonas was born in Budapest, the son of Magda (Klug) and Dr. Georg M. Hübsch. Although Jonas is of Jewish descent, his parents and grandparents converted to Christianity when he was 3 years old. During the Holocaust in Hungary in 1944-1945, Jonas went into hiding with his family.

Despite his interests in literature and education, Jonas dropped out of high school. He worked as a radio producer in Budapest before escaping after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.

He emigrated to Canada in 1956. He worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from 1962 to 1985 as a script editor and producer.

From 1974 to 1979 Jonas was married to columnist Barbara Amiel (now the wife of media mogul Conrad Black), and they remain good friends. He co-wrote a nonfiction book with Amiel, By Persons Unknown: The strange death of Christine Demeter. Jonas wrote in his memoirs that Amiel insisted on being married in a synagogue, which was the first time he had been inside one.(Citation needed)

He worked as a columnist for the Toronto Sun from 1981 to 2001, when he moved to the National Post where he remained a regular contributor until his death.

Jonas died on January 10, 2016, at the age of 80. He had suffered from Parkinson's disease for years preceding his death.

Writing

Jonas wrote more than 15 books, including 4 collections of poetry.

In addition, he wrote a play, Pushkin, which was produced by Theatre Plus in Toronto in 1978; and libretti for 2 operas by Tibor Polgar, The European Lover (1966) and The Glove (1973).

Poetry

The Oxford Companion to Canadian Verse says of his early poems: "Jonas's [first] three volumes of poetry ... revealed him as a student of modern man's bleak and lonely existence. An ironic wit offers the only relief from the monotonous vacuum depicted in his sparse and spare verse.... The undecorated style of Jonas's verse often borders on the prosaic, and it is no coincidence that he later turned almost completely to prose."

Reviewing his 2011 collection, The Jonas Variations, the Globe and Mail said: "The Jonas Variations ... reworks 50 other poets as thematic improvisations, imitative impromptus and more or less straight translations from Latin, French, Italian, German, Russian and Hungarian. Jonas brings a dependable toolkit of poetic devices, multilingual fluency and, occasionally, Nabokovian resourcefulness. Within translation’s limits, he ably serves the originals, though he sometimes sacrifices tone for the sake of a rhyme, and his most persuasive remakings are, naturally enough, from his first language, Hungarian.... Nothing in this book resembles the unadorned declarations and prose rhythms of The Absolute Smile, Jonas’s first collection.... Jonas, who began as a poet, remains one."

Conrad Black wrote of The Jonas Variations: "His latest book is a work of genius. Of the languages from which he translates and adapts poems, I am qualified to judge only those from French, but many others are obviously hugely imaginative, and however close their connection to the original, are brilliant in English."

Vengeance

His 1984 book Vengeance, describing the events of Operation Wrath of God (an Israeli operation to kill the terrorists responsible for the 1972 Munich massacre) became the basis for 2 films: TV-film Sword of Gideon (1986), and feature film Munich (2005), directed by Steven Spielberg.

Jonas complained of what he considers pro-Palestinian distortions in Munich. Specifically, Jonas felt that script writer Tony Kushner, a Jew who has referred to the formation of Israel as a "mistake," failed to make a moral distinction between terrorism and legitimate military actions. At the same time, some critics claim that Jonas's source for the book, New York security consultant Juval Aviv, who claimed to be the head of a Mossad hit team, had fabricated the story. In a lengthy article in Macleans magazine in January 2006, Jonas admits that there is no way of determining whether his source was telling the truth. However, Jonas did attempt to verify many details of the story by visiting the places in Europe where his source claimed to be operating, and at least to that extent he is satisfied with the evidence.

Recognition

By Persons Unknown: The Strange Death of Christine Demeter won a 1978 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime book.

Vengeance (1984) became the basis of two films, Sword of Gideon (1986) and Munich (2005).

His poetry was anthologized in the 1984 Penguin Book of Canadian Verse.

Publications

Poetry

• The Absolute Smile. Toronto: Anansi, 1967.
• The Happy Hungry Man. Toronto: Anansi, 1970.
• Cities. Toronto: Anansi, 1973.
• The East Wind Blows West: New and selected poems. Vancouver: Cacanadada Press, 1993.
• The Jonas Variations: A literary seance. Toronto: Cormorant Books, 2011.
• Selected Poems, 1967-2011 (with introduction by Margaret Atwood). Toronto: Cormorant Books, 2015.

Novel

• Final Decree. Toronto: Macmillan, 1981.

Non-fiction

• By Persons Unknown: The Strange Death of Christine Demeter (with Barbara Amiel). Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1977.
• The Scales of Justice: Seven famous criminal cases recreated (with Edward Greenspan). Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys / Montreal & New York: CBC Enterprises, 1983.
• Vengeance: The true story of an Israeli counter-terrorist team. Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1984; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984; London: Collins, 1984.
• Foreword to Sándor Kopácsi, In the Name of the Working Class: The insides story of the Hungarian Revolution. New York: Grove Press, 1987; London: Fontana, 1989.
• The Scales of Justice: Volume II. Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys / CBC Enterprises, 1986.
• Greenspan: The Case for the Defense (with Edward Greenspan). Toronto: Macmillan, 1987.
• Crocodiles in the Bathtub, and other perils. Toronto: Totem Books, 1987.
• A Passion Observed: A true story of a motorcycle racer. Toronto: Macmillan, 1989.
• Politically Incorrect. Toronto: Lester Publishing, 1991.
• Beethoven's Mask: Notes On my life and times. Toronto: Key Porter Books, 2005.
• Reflections on Islam: Ideas, opinions, arguments. Toronto: Key Porter Books, 2007.

Edited

• Some Hungarian Poets (edited with John Robert Colombo). Toronto: Colombo, 1995.

George Jonas Selected Poems (Readings)

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• Canadian Jewish poets
• List of Canadian poets
• Timeline of Canadian poetry

External links

Books

• George Jonas at Amazon.com

About

• George Jonas in The Canadian Encyclopedia
• George Jonas in the Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature
• George Jonas by David Warren
• Remembering George Jonas, 1935-2016 at Quill & Quire
• George Jonas Official website.
• "Poetry in devotion: George Jonas comes full circle with the release of his new book," National Post.