Panni Palásti (Eva Brown) is well-known as a poet and her work has been published in Europe, the United States and in New Zealand. Her much-awaited memoir Budapest Girl: an immigrant confronts the past will be launched in the Free House Yurt on Thursday 10 December at 5.30 pm.

Born in Budapest in 1933, Panni entered the US as a refugee in 1956 after the defeat of the Hungarian revolution. She studied and worked there as a teacher and journalist before coming to New Zealand in 1973. She spent 28 years in Russell, and has been living in Nelson since 2002.

‘A Hungarian exile of 1956 with a gift for poetry reflects on a Budapest childhood during World War Two. A complex family spanning the spectrum of Jews, peasants and urban middle class, plus the day-to-day struggle for survival in wartime, make for a memoir which takes us outside the present consumer culture into the heart of an authentic New Zealand artist.’

Paul Maunder

‘I love the writing: the honesty of it, the search that is always there, the courage to face hard truths and at the same time imagine others’ lives with compassion.’

Elizabeth Smither

The Free House is at 95 Collingwood Street, Nelson. At the launch signed copies of Budapest Girl will be for sale at a reduced price to celebrate the occasion, with the assistance of Page & Blackmore Booksellers.