Vivian Felsen

Vivian Felsen is a Canadian translator from French and Yiddish into English, and a visual artist of Jewish origin. She is the recipient of the Canadian Jewish Book Award and J. I. Segal Award (2004, 2018) for her translations dealing with Canadian Jewish history and Holocaust memoirs.

Early life and education Vivian Felsen comes from Toronto, her grandfather was the Jewish journalist Israel Medres. and a law degree from York University. Her translations of poems by J. I. Segal later appeared in the journal Canadian Jewish Studies. and on Israel Medres for the second edition of Encyclopaedia Judaica.

Visual arts Felsen works as a visual artist, with a career spanning several decades. She taught drawing and painting at the Max the Mutt College of Animation, Art & Design, as well as through the Toronto Board of Education.

Book translations

From Yiddish

Israel Medres: Montreal of yesterday: Jewish life in Montreal, 1900-1920 (Montreal fun nekhtn), 2000 Pinchas Hirschprung: The Veil of Tears (Fun natsishen yomertol), 2016

From French

Paul Schaffer: The Veiled Sun: From Auschwitz to New Beginning (Le Soleil voilé, Auschwitz 1942–1945), with original introduction by Simone Veil, 2015 Pierre Anctil: J. I. Segal (1896–1954): A Montreal Yiddish Poet and His Milieu, 2017