A Very Capable Life: The Autobiography of Zarah Petri

Overview

Zarah Petri was just a little girl when her family left Hungary to find a new life in Canada in the 1920s. She showed spunk and a great imagination that would serve her well as a new immigrant and young married woman. Zarah and her family lived through the Depression, and she learned to make ends meet in any way she could, even bending the law if necessary. Her son John writes this touching memoir, told in the first person, in Zarah’s own unique voice. Her remembrances are sometimes funny, sometimes sad but always entertaining.

Readers will not soon forget the expressive, albeit at times ungrammatical, voice of Zarah Petri - a woman whose courageous spirit, generous heart, and fierce independence as she confronts whatever challenges fate conjures make her worthy of our attention and respect, as she beckons us to join her in discovering anew the country to which she journeyed so many years ago.

University of Washington Press