The Tailor of Inverness Author Talk at Waterstones Inverness

Author and actor Matthew Zajac will be in store discussing The Tailor of Inverness, the remarkable true story of his father’s life and work. Matthew will be in conversation with Hamish MacDonald, author of Square Baw.

Matthew Zajac grew up in Inverness and studied drama at Bristol University. He has worked as an actor for 42 years, appearing in theatres throughout the UK, and in numerous film, TV and radio productions. In 2009, he was named Best Actor in the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland for his performance in his stage adaptation of The Tailor of Inverness. The play has won several other awards and has toured extensively in Scotland and abroad.

Told from his son’s perspective, this book narrates the remarkable true story of how a boy who grew up on a farm in Galicia (then in Eastern Poland, now in Western Ukraine) came to be a tailor in Inverness.

His life spanned most of the 20th century. Taken prisoner by the Soviets in 1939 and forced to work, he was freed in an amnesty after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, and joined the thousands of Poles fighting with the British Army in North Africa and Italy. He was then resettled in Britain in 1948, joining his brother in Glasgow.

Readers who enjoy poignant, family driven narratives rich with secrets will find this book especially rewarding. It will appeal to fans of European history, military history, those who are drawn to real-world accounts of conflict and displacement as well as those who enjoyed the stage show.