Jack Ludwig

Jack Barry Ludwig (August 30, 1922 – February 12, 2018) was a Canadian-born American-resident novelist, short story writer, and sportswriter.

Born and raised in the Jewish Canadian community of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Ludwig was educated at the University of Manitoba, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1944, and the University of California, Los Angeles, earning his Ph.D. in 1953. He was the basis of the character Valentine Gersbach in Bellow's novel Herzog. although he never published a collection of his short stories in book form.

Ludwig was well regarded for his journalism, which concentrated almost exclusively on sportswriting following the publication of Hockey Night in Moscow in 1972, and the subject of a chapter in Graeme Gibson's 1973 non-fiction work Eleven Canadian Novelists.

Works Confusions (1963) Above Ground (1968) Hockey Night in Moscow (1972) A Woman of Her Age (1973) The Great Hockey Thaw; or, The Russians Are Here! (1974) Five Ring Circus: The Montreal Olympics (1976) Games of Fear and Winning: Sports with an Inside View (1976) The Great American Spectaculars: The Kentucky Derby, Mardi Gras, and Other Days of Celebration (1976)