Zweig's father explained that the grandmother was being sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp, which was operated by the German occupiers of Poland.

His appointment was part of the "denazification" of the judicial system in postwar Germany; only Germans without connections to the Nazi party could serve as judges.

She later wrote, "Learning German so that I could read and write and get rid of my English accent took me a couple of months; the assessment as to which is my mother-language is still going on.

I count in English, adore Alice in Wonderland, am best friends with Winnie-the-Pooh and I am still hunting for the humour in German jokes.

She worked for a time as an intern and then an editor for the Offenbach section of Abendpost, a tabloid newspaper which served the Frankfurt region.

"[8] While working for Abendpost, Zweig wrote a number of children's books, commencing with Eltern sind auch Menschen [Parents are people too] (1978).

It describes an infatuation with a Kĩkũyũ boy; the book won several awards,[9] including the Glass Globe of the Royal Dutch Geographical Society.

[citation needed] Zweig explained in an interview that the success of Ein Mundvoll Erde encouraged her to write her first novel for adults.

In 2012 she published her memoir, Nirgendwo war Heimat: Mein Leben auf zwei Kontinenten [Nowhere was Home: My Life on Two Continents].

In addition to these books, Zweig had continued her work as a journalist, and up to 2013 was writing a column Meine Welt [My World] for the newspaper Frankfurter Neue Presse.