Sheldon Oberman

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sheldon Oberman (May 20, 1949 - March 26, 2004) was an award-winning Canadian children's writer who lived in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Born in Winnipeg, Oberman (known to friends as Obie) grew up in the city's North End. After graduating from St. Johns High School, he studied literature first at the University of Winnipeg and then at the University of Jerusalem. Oberman lived and travelled through Canada, Europe and the Middle East before he returned to Winnipeg in 1973, where he received his teaching degree. In 1975, he started working as an English and Drama teacher at Joseph Wolinsky Collegiate, a job he held for nearly 30 years.

Oberman started writing in the mid-seventies, inspired by bedtime stories he told his children. An important development in his career as a writer was the summer he spent at the Banff School of Fine Arts where he studied under W.O. Mitchell. Oberman published twelve books, including the award-winning Always Prayer Shawl (1999), The Shaman's Nephew (1999; short-listed for the Governor General's Award) and The Island of the Minotaur. A two-volume collection of Jewish folk tales will be published posthumously.

Oberman acted and directed in both film and stage plays, and toured North America as a professional storyteller. He wrote columns and freelance articles for the Winnipeg Free Press and published children's songs, stories and poems in a number of magazines, journals and anthologies.

He died of stomach cancer on March 26, 2004.