Rhapsody in Quebec: On the Path of an Immigrant Child

By Akos Verboczy and Toula Drimonis

Born in Hungary in 1975, Akos Verboczy moved to Montreal at the age of 11 with his sister and mother, an esthetician, who learned that in Canada women were willing to pay a fortune ($20) to have their leg hair brutally ripped out. His story begins in Hungary, where at the age of nine he learned that he was a Jew too—"half-Jew" to be more accurate. Unlike some who emigrated from Eastern Europe, Verboczy has no particularly beefs about life "behind the iron curtain." He lands in Montreal as James Brown's Living in America plays and Rocky knocks the Russian communist boxer flat in Rocky IV. The good guys he had learned to like were now officially the bad guys. Once in "America" he discovers that he will be going to French school—after all it is Québec—, but then he learns that Canada is the only "place on the planet where there's no prestige in speaking French." In fifty vignettes and tales that belie all the clichés about immigration to Québec, he depicts the experience of embracing a culture and a people who are constantly obliged to reaffirm their right to exist.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Apr 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781771861045

Akos Verboczy

Akos Verbczy has a degree in Political Science from the Université du Québec à Montréal. Hee worked for several years in grass-roots organizations aimed at involving young people involved in public and democratic activities. Elected to Montreal’s largest school board, the Commission scolaire de Montréal, he chaired the intercultural relations committee for nine years. From 2012 to 2014, he was political attaché to Québec’s Minister responsible for Immigration and Cultural Communities and application of the French Language Charter. Rhapsody in Quebec is his first book.