A story of courage, unconventionality and lust for life. Vera Wasowski
was just seven years old when German soldiers marched her family into
the Lvov Jewish ghetto in Poland. She watched her father take his own
life and her mother accede to sexual blackmail in order to ensure her
and Vera's survival. With unsparing honesty and the blackest humour, she
recalls a world where the desire to survive was everything.
After the war, Vera studied journalism at Warsaw University, throwing
herself into the bohemian scene. In 1958, she migrated to Australia with
her husband and young son to escape rising anti-Semitism. Here she would
carve out an adventurous career as an ABC TV researcher and producer on
pioneering programs such as This Day Tonight.
It was a wild time for politics and the media, and Vera was at the
centre of it all, mixing with the Hawkes in the 1980s and forming a
close friendship with artist Mirka Mora.
In Vera, acclaimed biographer Robert Hillman has captured the fierce
and passionate life of an amazing Australian. Robert Hillman's memoir,
The Boy in the Green Suit, won the Australian National Biography Award
for 2004.
His 2007 biography, My Life as a Traitor, written with Zarah
Ghahramani, appeared in numerous overseas editions. His first
collaboration with Najaf Mazari, The Rugmaker of Mazar-e-Sharif, has
been a set text in many schools. He is also the author of Gurrumul: His
Life and Music and the novel Joyful.
