Mira Rocca Editor

Violette Shamash (1912–2006) was born in Baghdad. In 1941, following the Farhud, she and her husband and their two children fled Iraq for India. They subsequently lived in Palestine, Cyprus, and Israel before settling in London in 1964. Violette began writing what would become her memoir in the 1980s.

Tony Rocca, a journalist, spent much of his career on the staffs of the Daily Mail and the Sunday Times. He has worked with a variety of British newspapers and magazines, and he’s the author of a memoir, Catching Fireflies (2005).

Mira Rocca, Violette’s daughter, worked in the American embassy in London and in the travel industry before she and Tony became hoteliers and winemakers in Tuscany.