Richard Poplak

Richard was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and immigrated to Canada with his family a few short months before Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1990. Richard trained as a filmmaker and fine artist at Montreal’s Concordia University and has produced and directed numerous short films, music videos and commercials. He has been nominated for five Much Music Video Awards.Now a full-time writer, Richard can be found learning to play polo, chasing Big Game in Africa, investigating German sub-sub cultures in Namibia, eating at TGI Fridays in the Middle East, bowling in Kazakhstan, racing Mercedes sports sedans in Russia-for a whole bunch of different publications. He’s often on CBC Radio, less often on CBC Television, and is the editor-at-large for indie graphic novel publisher Pop Sandbox. His first book was the highly acclaimed Ja, No, Man: Growing Up White in Apartheid-Era South Africa (Penguin, 2007) his follow-up, entitled The Sheikh’s Batmobile: In Pursuit of American Pop-Culture in the Muslim World (Soft Skull, 2010), is out now. Richard has also written the experimental journalistic graphic novel Kenk: A Graphic Portrait (Pop Sandbox, 2010). Ja, No, Man was longlisted for the Alan Paton Non-Fiction prize, shortlisted for the University of Johannesburg Literary Award and voted one of the Top-10 books of 2007 by Now Magazine. Richard has won South Africa’s Media-24 Best Feature Writing Award and a National Magazine Award in Canada. http://www.richardpoplak.com