The Zookeepers War

Thursday 15 July

7.00pm – 8.00pm
Watsonia Library
4/6 Ibbotson Street
Watsonia

Steven Conte won the Prime Minister’s Literary Award in 2008 and presented at Eltham Bookshop’s New Voices 2008.

About the book:
It is 1943 and each night in a bomb shelter beneath the Berlin Zoo an Australian woman, Vera, shelters with her German husband, Axel, the zoo’s director.

Together, they struggle to look after the animals through the air raids and food shortages of war. When the zoo’s staff is drafted into the army, forced labourers are sent in as replacements. At first, Vera finds the idea abhorrent, but gradually she realises that the new workers are the zoo’s only hope, and forms an unexpected bond with one of them.

This is a city where a foreign accent is a constant source of suspicion, where busybodies report the names of neighbours’s dinner guest to the Gestapo. As tensions mount in the closing days of the war, nothing, and no one, it seems, can be trusted.

The Zookeeper’s War is a powerful novel of a marriage under siege in a collapsing city. It confronts not only the brutality of war but the possibility of heroism – and delivers an ending that is both shocking and deeply moving.

Join us for a discussion about the novel and the craft of writing.

The Zookeeper’s War is available at ELTHAMbookshop for $19.95

Free event

Bookings required: 9435 2397

Wine and nibbles included for this cosy evening

Steven will sign copies of his book at the event