WOMEN WRITERS
Bestselling Australian women’s fiction author Victoria Purman explores the post-war immigrant journey in Australia in her latest novel, The Last Of The Bonegilla Girls.
Remember the name Victoria Purman as she’s about to take over your bookshelf! Australian author Victoria Purman is a gifted storyteller who appears regularly at writers’ festivals, and has been nominated for a number of readers’ choice awards. Victoria has worked in and around the Adelaide media for nearly 30 years as an ABC television and radio journalist, a speechwriter to a Premier, political adviser, editor, media adviser and private sector communications consultant.
She is a Vice President of Romance Writers of Australia, and a long-standing member of the Writers SA Board.
Her latest novel, The Last Of The
Bonegilla Girls, is a story very close to Victoria’s heart. She drew inspiration for the novel from her Hungarian grandparents, who went through the Bonegilla Migrant Camp in the 1950s, with her mother and aunt. Her Oma
and Opa lost their home, were deported to Germany, and made Bonegilla their temporary home, raising their five children in Australia.
The Last Of The Bonegilla Girls is a heartfelt post-WWII story about the power of female friendship and family, secrets and lies, set in Bonegilla. It’s the perfect read for fans of The Woolgrower’s
Companion by Joy Rhoades and Wild Lands by Nicole Alexander. Astonishingly, one in 20 Australians are related to or descended from someone who went through the Bonegilla Migrant Camp – Australia’s largest and longest-lasting post-war migrant accommodation centre. The book is a beautifully executed testament to the migrants who helped form contemporary Australia.