Scliar was born in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, into a Jewish family that immigrated to Brazil from Bessarabia in 1919. He graduated in medicine in 1962, majoring in public health. He first worked at the Jewish Hospital for the Elderly in Porto Alegre, and later worked in the public health field in tuberculosis prevention and treatment. Scliar is best known outside Brazil for his 1981 novel Max and the Cats (Max e os Felinos), the story of a young German man who flees Berlin after he comes to the attention of the Nazis for having had an affair with a married woman. En route to Brazil, his ship sinks, and he finds himself alone in a dinghy with a jaguar who had been travelling in the hold. A prolific writer, Scliar published over 100 books in Portuguese, covering va- rious literary genres: short stories; novels; young adult fiction; children's books; and essays. In 1962, his first book Stories of a Doctor in Training was published, although later on he regretted having published it so young. His second book The Carnival of the Animals was published in 1968. In a recent autobiographical piece, Scliar discusses his membership of the Jewish, medical, Gaucho, and Brazilian tribes. His novel The Centaur in the Garden was included among the 100 Greatest Works of Modern Jewish Literature by The National Yiddish Book Center. In an interview with Judith Bolton-Fasman published in The Jewish Reader,