Joseph Wechsberg (29 August 1907 – 10 April 1983) was a Jewish Moravian writer, journalist, musician, and gourmet. Born in

Ostrava Ostrava (; pl, Ostrawa; german: Ostrau ) is a city in the north-east of the Czech Republic, and the capital of the Moravian-Silesian Region. It has about 280,000 inhabitants. It lies from the border with Poland, at the confluences of four rive ...

, in

Moravia Moravia ( , also , ; cs, Morava ; german: link=yes, Mähren ; pl, Morawy ; szl, Morawa; la, Moravia) is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. The me ...

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

, he and his wife requested and received asylum in the United States in 1939 when Germany invaded Czechoslovakia. His mother was among the Czech Jews interned by the Nazis and later was murdered at

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

. Over his career he was a prolific writer who wrote over two dozen works of nonfiction, including books on music and musicians, and contributed numerous articles to publications such as ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

''.

Bibliography

Books

* * Looking for a Bluebird, Penguin, 1948 * Blue Trout & Black Truffles (the peregrinations of an Epicure), Alfred A.Knopf, 1954 * Avalanche, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1958An account of a deadly avalanche in Blons, Austria, in 1954. * Red Plush and Black Velvet: the Story of Dame Nellie Melba and her Times, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1962. * The Merchant Bankers, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1966. * The Murderers Among Us, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1967. LCN 67-13204. * The Voices, 1969Account written in Vienna of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. * The Glory of the Violin, Viking Adult, 1973, * The Lost World of the Great Spas, New York: Harper & Row, 1979 * The Vienna I Knew, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1979, ISBN 0-385-12674-3 * Trifles Make Perfection: Selected Essays of Joseph Wechsberg, Boston: David R. Godine, 1999 LCN 98-29258

Short fiction

;Stories ——————— ;Notes

In popular culture

Wechsberg's book Blue Trout & Black Truffles was gifted by Nick Kokonas to Grant Achatz while Nick was trying to convince Grant to form a restaurant partnership with him. The result was Alinea, the only Chicago restaurant to retain a three-star status, Michelin’s highest accolade.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wechsberg, Joseph 1907 births 1983 deaths 20th-century Czech male musicians 20th-century Czech people 20th-century journalists 20th-century violinists Czech Jews Czech food writers Czech journalists Czech male writers Czech violinists Esquire (magazine) people Male violinists Musicians from Ostrava The New Yorker people Writers from Ostrava