Richard Poplak

Richard was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and immigrated to Canada with his family a few short months before Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1990. Richard trained as a filmmaker and fine artist at Montreal’s Concordia University and has produced and directed numerous short films, music videos and commercials and has been nominated for five Much Music Video Awards.

Now a full-time writer, Richard can be found learning to play polo, chasing Big Game in Africa, investigating German sub-sub cultures in Namibia, eating at TGI Fridays in the Middle East, bowling in Kazakhstan, racing Mercedes sports sedans in Russia - all for publications as diverse as The Walrus, THIS Magazine, Toronto Life, The Globe & Mail, CBC.ca Arts Online, Bicycling and Maverick. He works as an occasional roving pop-cultural commentator for CBC Radio’s Q.

His first book, the highly acclaimed Ja, No, Man: Growing Up White in Apartheid-era South Africa, is published by Penguin Publishing; his follow-up, entitled The Sheikh’s Batmobile: In Pursuit of American Pop-Culture in the Muslim World, will be on shelves spring, 2009.