Bücher von Violette Shamash

The AuthorViolette was born in Baghdad in 1912, and lived with her brothers and sisters on the riverbank in a 'castle' built by their father in Ottoman days. She grew up in Arcadian conditions, an Arab of the Jewish faith, witnessing Mesopotamia's emergence from a primitive past to a modern present and a future full of promise.But when the Jews were attacked in the pogrom of 1941, she and her young family fled to start a new life in India, and after that, Palestine. The combination of Violette's acute asthma and Israel's war of independence meant that the family fled once more - to Cyprus. The following years were spent between the island and Israel, before finally settling in London in 1964.A cultured and educated lady, Violette was passionately interested in Jewish Iraqi history, and for over 20 years sent jottings, letters, and short essays to her daughter, Mira. These Memories of Eden have now been edited by Mira and her journalist husband, and published for a broader audience. Violette died in 2006.The EditorsTony Rocca is a journalist, author and winemaker, the grandson of the Italian immigrant who bestowed the name Manchester United on the struggling soccer club once known as Newton Heath (no shares passed down the line).Born near Manchester and educated at Rossall, at the age of 17 he began working for a local paper, the Stockport Express. In 1964 he joined the Daily Mail where he worked for 10 years. There followed a further decade in London with The Sunday Times as reporter, feature-writer, Insight investigator and foreign correspondent with specialised interest in Greece, Cyprus and the Middle East.Tony's 15 minutes of fame came with the demise of Sir James Goldsmith's Now! magazine which he joined as deputy news editor on the very morning it became Then! Next came a brief period as features editor of the Mail on Sunday and several years freelancing. His articles have appeared in most British national newspapers as well as The New York Times and Reader's Digest.In 1989 he and his wife Mira returned to his family's Italian roots and invested their savings in a dilapidated Tuscan farmhouse. The story of the pitfalls and adversity that can confront the 'good life' novice, ending in unprecedented success for the wine they produced, formed his first book, Catching Fireflies, published by Century in 2004 (Arrow, 2005).