AustLit
Latest Issues
AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Susan Varga's memoir covers a varied life across seven decades, circling between Australia and Europe, activism and seclusion, everyday life and the writing life.
'This compelling memoir of Susan Varga's life spans seven decades and circles between Australia and Europe, activism and seclusion, everyday life and the writing life.
'She was born into war-torn Budapest but her family escaped loss and trauma to make a new life in Sydney. Susan makes another escape, from the narrow confines of suburbia into the arms of the exciting and contradictory world of the Sydney Push. As a young woman she lives in London, Paris, Bendigo and Holland, before returning to Sydney, keen to take part of Gough Whitlam's reformist agenda, in a powerful time of change.
'Yet Susan also spends a long time lost in the wilderness, wrestling with the raft of dilemmas of the life of a woman. When she finally commits to the demands and joys of writing, and to a surprising love, her life assumes a new harmony. Fate then intervenes to throw up major challenges, testing her will to re-find the hard joys of life.
'In this memoir, Susan Varga moves through the intersections between her own life and the wider world, with an incisive portrait of our times.'(Publication summary)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
-
The Insects and the Trees
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , September 2022;
— Review of Hard Joy : Life and Writing 2022 single work autobiography'Susan Varga was a child of five when she left Hungary for life in Australia. It was December 1948, the Communist regime was in power, the Iron Curtain was about to fall, and on the train that day, there were seven of them: her mother Heddy, her sister Jutka, her brand-new stepfather – whose name they were travelling under – his brother, his wife and their baby. As they approached Austria, the border guard came to check their documents, their passports stamped Never To Return. ‘What is your name, Miss?’ he asks the young Suszi. She punches her fist, and says, ‘I know. I know it, I know! But I’ve forgotten.’' (Introduction)
-
Susan Varga’s Hard Joy Explores the Possibilities and Limits of Memoir
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 2 August 2022;
— Review of Hard Joy : Life and Writing 2022 single work autobiography'Historically, memoir has been a genre for older authors, reflecting back on their lives, but in recent years there has been an increase in life writing that is tied to a set of ideas or a political agenda.'(Introduction)
-
Reclamation : An Affecting Memoir of Loss and Change
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , July no. 444 2022; (p. 35)
— Review of Hard Joy : Life and Writing 2022 single work autobiography 'When Susan Varga made the momentous, long-delayed decision to commit herself to writing, her first task was to write her mother’s story – that of a Holocaust survivor who migrated from Hungary to Australia with her second husband and two daughters in 1948, when Susan was five. That story, which is also one of a complex and difficult relationship between mother and daughter, became the award-winning Heddy and Me (1994).' (Introduction)
-
Reclamation : An Affecting Memoir of Loss and Change
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , July no. 444 2022; (p. 35)
— Review of Hard Joy : Life and Writing 2022 single work autobiography 'When Susan Varga made the momentous, long-delayed decision to commit herself to writing, her first task was to write her mother’s story – that of a Holocaust survivor who migrated from Hungary to Australia with her second husband and two daughters in 1948, when Susan was five. That story, which is also one of a complex and difficult relationship between mother and daughter, became the award-winning Heddy and Me (1994).' (Introduction) -
Susan Varga’s Hard Joy Explores the Possibilities and Limits of Memoir
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 2 August 2022;
— Review of Hard Joy : Life and Writing 2022 single work autobiography'Historically, memoir has been a genre for older authors, reflecting back on their lives, but in recent years there has been an increase in life writing that is tied to a set of ideas or a political agenda.'(Introduction)
-
The Insects and the Trees
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , September 2022;
— Review of Hard Joy : Life and Writing 2022 single work autobiography'Susan Varga was a child of five when she left Hungary for life in Australia. It was December 1948, the Communist regime was in power, the Iron Curtain was about to fall, and on the train that day, there were seven of them: her mother Heddy, her sister Jutka, her brand-new stepfather – whose name they were travelling under – his brother, his wife and their baby. As they approached Austria, the border guard came to check their documents, their passports stamped Never To Return. ‘What is your name, Miss?’ he asks the young Suszi. She punches her fist, and says, ‘I know. I know it, I know! But I’ve forgotten.’' (Introduction)
