Vivian Jeanette Kaplan (born June 17, 1946) is a Canadian writer and business owner.[1]
The daughter of Gerda Kosiner,[1] she was born in Shanghai. Her parents were Jews from Vienna; her mother tongue was German. Kaplan came to Canada with her parents at the age of two; the family settled in Toronto. She studied English, French and Spanish at the University of Toronto. Kaplan operated Vivian Kaplan Oriental Interiors, a company which imported home furnishings from East Asia, for twenty years.[2]
She wrote her family's story in Ten Green Bottles: The True Story of One Family's Journey from War-Torn Austria to the Ghettos of Shanghai.[2] The book received the Canadian Jewish Book Award in 2003 and the Adei-Wizo Prize presented in Florence, Italy in 2007.[3] A play based on the book was brought to the stage in Toronto in 2009.[4]
In 2013, Kaplan published a historical novel Blind Vision.[5] Within this book Kaplan, after extensive and meticulous research, describes in fine detail how she concluded, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Christopher Columbus was a secret Sephardic Jew. In a 2014 interview, available on YouTube, she provides an overview of what led her to this surprising conclusion. Ten years later, in 2024, it was shown to be correct as a result of DNA analyses of his bones.
References
edit- ^ a b "Survival in Shanghai". Midstream. 2005.
- ^ a b "Vivian Jeanette Kaplan". Macmillan Publishers.
- ^ "Daughter's book keeps her mother's survival story alive". York Region. October 31, 2008.
- ^ "What's On: Stage". Toronto Star. May 14, 2009.
- ^ "Blind Vision". Hannover House.