Introduction
Rose Zwi ( 8 May 1928 – 22 October 2018) was a Mexican-born South African–Australian writer best known for her work about the immigrants in South Africa. Born in Oaxaca, Mexico, to Jewish refugees from Lithuania, her family moved to South Africa when she was a young girl. In 1967 Zwi graduated from the University of Witwatersrand (Johannesburg) with a BA (Hons) in English literature.
Zwi lived briefly in Israel, but returned to South Africa until 1988 when she relocated to Australia. She became an Australian citizen in 1992 and lived in Sydney, New South Wales.
Another Year in Africa
Another Year in Africa is set in a fictional town of Mayfontein, near Johannesburg in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The novel is a chronicle of exile, alienation and assimilation centering a Jewish community of Lithuanian descent.
Awards
- 1982 – Winner of the Olive Schreiner Prize for Another Year in Africa – a prize for new and emerging writers.
- 1982 – Mofolo-Plomer Prize for an unpublished novel (The Umbrella Tree)
- 1994 – Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Fiction Award for Safe Houses
Works
| Year | Title | Imprint | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | Another Year in Africa | Ravan Press | ISBN 0869753169 |
| 1981 | The Inverted Pyramid : a Novel | ISBN 086975212X | |
| 1984 | Exiles: A Novel | Donker | ISBN 0868520608 |
| 1990 | The Umbrella Tree | Penguin | ISBN 0140134107 |
| 1993 | Safe Houses | Spinifex | ISBN 1875559213 |
| 1997 | Last Walk in Naryshkin Park | ISBN 1875559728 | |
| 2002 | Speak the Truth, Laughing | ISBN 1876756217 | |
| 2010 | Once Were Slaves: A Journey Through the Circles of Hell | Sydney Jewish Museum | ISBN 9780980545869 |