Howard Engel


Howard Engel CM. He was one of the authors, in 1982, responsible for foundingCrime Writers Of Canada.

Personal life

From 1962 to 1978 he was married to Marian Engel, a noted Canadian authoress of literary fiction, who died in 1985. They had two children, twins Charlotte and William, born in 1965. Charlotte currently is an independent television producer. Howard married Canadian novelist Janet Hamilton. The couple have one son, Jacob Engel, born in 1989.
In 2001, he unknowingly suffered a stroke that left him with alexia sine agraphia, a condition that prevented him from understanding written words without a major effort, while not affecting his ability to write. He was later able to write a new novel, Memory Book, in which his character Benny Cooperman suffers a blow to the head and is similarly affected. He later published The Man Who Forgot How To Read, a memoir of the time he spent recovering from the stroke, with an afterword by Oliver Sacks, and another novel, East of Suez, in 2008.
In February 2007, Howard was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada, receiving it at the 100th investiture. In 2013, Engel received a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medal. He died in Toronto on July 16, 2019, of pneunomia that arose from a stroke, at the age of 88. True animal-lovers: Howard's beloved living cat, Kali, is included by their family in his obituary.

Benny Cooperman novels