Michael Visontay

Michael Visontay is an Australian journalist, editor and writer. He has worked in senior roles with numerous Australian newspapers, including The Sun-Herald, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian Jewish News and The Jewish Independent, as well as a sports commentator at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Family and early life

Visontay was born to a Hungarian Jewish father, Ivan Visontay, whose family hailed from Gyöngyös in the country's north. Aged 14, Ivan and his parents Pali and Sara Weiszmann were interned in concentration camps after the 1944 German invasion of Hungary. Pali and Ivan were able to return to Gyöngyös, where they reopened their delicatessen and rented rooms from Olga Illovfsky, who became Pali's wife. After the introduction of the Hungarian People's Republic, the family applied for visas to migrate to the United States; after the applications for Pali and Olga were refused, they decided to move to Australia instead, their passage being supported in part by Olga's inheritance of wealth from the estate of the antiquarian bookseller Gabriel Wells.

Following the family's arrival in Australia in 1952, they established a delicatessen named Minerva in the Kings Cross area of Sydney.

Bibliography

• Welcome to Wanderland: Western Sydney Wanderers and the Pride of the West, 2016, Hardie Grant.
• Who gave you permission? The memoir of a child sexual-abuse survivor who fought back (Manny Waks, co-authored by Michael Visontay), 2016, Scribe.
• Noble Fragments: the maverick who broke up the world’s greatest book, 2024, Scribe.