Melbourne poet and literary critic, Tali Lavi and award-winning journalist and author, Jonathan Freedland, will discuss his bestselling books – The Traitors Circle: The Rebels Against the Nazis and the Spy Who Betrayed Them, the compelling true story of a high-society, anti-Nazi resistance network in 1943 Berlin, and The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World, the remarkable account of the life of Rudolf Vrba, who together with fellow escapee Alfred Wetzler first revealed the full truth of the notorious death camp.
Artists
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Jonathan Freedland
Jonathan Freedland is a weekly columnist for the Guardian, presenter of BBC Radio 4’s contemporary history series The Long View and of two podcasts: the Guardian’s Politics Weekly America and Unholy, alongside the Israeli journalist Yonit Levi. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Save the World and The Traitors Circle: The Rebels Against the Nazis and the Spy Who Betrayed Them. He is also the author of several thrillers under the pseudonym Sam Bourne and is a past winner of the Orwell Prize for Journalism.
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Tali Lavi
Tali Lavi is a writer, poet, critic and public interviewer whose essays and criticism has appeared in The Jewish Quarterly, The Saturday Paper, Australian Book Review and other publications. Her essay ‘Counting’ was published in Marina Benjamin’s Garden Among Fires: A Lockdown Anthology. In 2025, she curated ‘Voices of the Poets’, a collection of poetry that appeared in an exhibition on October 7 (Goldstone Gallery). Tali is currently working on an anthology and a poetry collection. She was part of MJBW’s programming committee for a decade (2013-2023) and has been moderating conversations for them since its inception.