Frederic Morton
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F_Morton.jpg |
Frederic Morton (right) is honoured by Austrian
Federal President Thomas Klestil (†) on 25 June 2003 (born
October 5,
1924) is a
Jewish
Austrian writer who emigrated to the
United States in
1940.
Born
Fritz Mandelbaum in
Vienna, Morton was raised as the son of a
blacksmith who had specialised in forging imperial
medals. In the wake of the
Anschluss of 1938 his father was arrested but later released again. In 1939 the family fled to
Britain, and the following year they came to
New York. Morton says that back in 1940 his father decided, with a heavy heart, to change their family name to
Morton to be able to join the then
anti-Semitic labor union.
Frederic Morton first worked as a
baker but from 1949 studied literature. In 1951 he visited Austria again for the first time after the war, and in 1962 he returned, this time to
Salzburg, to marry his fiancée, Marcia, whom he had met at college.
From 1959 Morton worked for several American periodicals, mainly as a columnist (
The New York Times,
Esquire, and
Playboy).
A Nervous Splendor: Vienna, 1888-1889 ( ISBN 014005667X )Thunder at Twilight: Vienna 1913/1914 ( ISBN 0306810212 )The Rothschilds: Portrait of a Dynasty ( ISBN 156836220X )The Forever Street (novel, 1984)
( ISBN 0743252209 )Runaway Waltz (
memoir, 2005)
( ISBN 0743225392 )*
Complete bibliography
