Zwi was born in Oaxaca, Mexico, to Jewish refugees from Lithuania who arrived in 1926 from Žagarė, and her family moved to South Africa when she was a young girl.
[1][2] While living in South Africa, she was part of the white anti-apartheid organization Black Sash.
[1] Zwi lived briefly in Israel, but returned to South Africa until 1988 when she relocated to Australia.
[1] Another Year in Africa is set in a fictional town of Mayfontein, near Johannesburg in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
The novel is a chronicle of exile, alienation and assimilation centering the Jewish community of Lithuanian descent.