Heather Morris (author)

Heather Morris (born 1953) is an Australian author born in New Zealand.

Heather Morris was born in 1953 in Te Awamutu on the North Island of New Zealand.

She later lived moved with her family to the town of Pirongia, and graduated from Te Awamutu High School.

In interviews, she stated that as a child she knew nothing about the Holocaust.

In 1971, she moved to Melbourne, where she met and married her husband Steve Morris in 1973.

Heather married Steve Morris in 1973.

In 1975, she and her husband returned to New Zealand and lived in Christchurch.

Her first son was born in 1976, her second son in 1980, and her daughter in 1985.

She began studying at the University of Canterbury in 1986 but returned to Melbourne in 1987 and graduated from Monash University with a BA in Political Science and Sociology in 1991.

In 1995, she began working as an office manager in the social work department at the Monash Medical Center in Melbourne, where she worked until 2017.

In 1996, Morris enrolled in a professional writing course at the Australian College of Journalism.

She has participated in screenwriting lectures, seminars and creative workshops both in Australia and the US.

Her first script was reviewed by the Oscar-winning author and screenwriter Pamela Wallace.

In 2003, she met and befriended Lale Sokolov, after his wife's death, and for three years he told her details about his life during the Holocaust and his work as a tattooist in the Auschwitz concentration camp, until his death in 2006.

Based on his stories, she later wrote The Tattooist of Auschwitz as a screenplay.

It was initially selected for a film adaptation, but after being rejected, entered international competitions and won the International Independent Film Awards in 2016.

Her 2018 debut novel was The Tattooist of Auschwitz.

In 2018, the story was published as her debut novel, The Tattooist of Auschwitz.

The book became a bestseller, published in over 50 countries around the world and sold tens of millions of copies.

In 2018, it was #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list and #1 on The New York Times international bestseller list.

In 2024, the book was adapted into the TV series The Tattooist of Auschwitz, with Harvey Keitel as Lale Sokolov and Melanie Lynskey as Morris.

Her second book, the sequel to The Tattooist from Auschwitz, Cilka's Journey, was released in 2020 and tells the story of Cilka Kovacova, who was 16 when she arrived in Auschwitz and became the camp commandant's mistress.

After her release from the camp she was arrested and sent to the Gulag in Russia where she met her husband Ivan and fled to Canada.

As part of the research work for the book, Morris visited Slovakia four times and researched the life of Kovacova.

She also visited Yad Vashem to further research the Holocaust.

Kovacova's stepson, George Kovach from California, sued Morris upon the publication of the book, because according to him the story is "hurtful" and blurring the boundaries of fact and fiction.

The third book in the trilogy Three Sisters, about three sisters who together survive Auschwitz, arrive in Slovakia and immigrate to Israel, was released in 2021.

Her latest book from 2023, Sisters Under the Rising Sun is about women in the Japanese labor camps in Indonesia during World War II.