Elena: A Hand Made Life

The deeply affecting life of Miriam Gold’s grandmother has found its most radiant storyteller. Tender, funny and triumphant, the exquisite depiction of these personal memories deserves the widest readership

Simon Garfield, author of All the Knowledge in the World

The story of one extraordinary ordinary woman wrapped up in the change and chaos of the twentieth century, told with great care, kindness and no small amount of playfulness. Each page of this book contains treasures

Lizzy Stewart, author of Alison

I read this rare gem in one sitting, captivated by a heroine whose inspiring life and handiwork could have been lost to history were it not for a granddaughter with a very different life, and very different work to do, but performed with hands no less loving, painstaking, restorative. A beautiful evocation of the enigma of transmission, transformation and survival

Devorah Baum, author of On Marriage

A warm, perceptive tribute to Miriam Gold’s doughty Jewish grandmother, whose grit and knitting needles carried her through displacement, war, tragedy and hardship

Posy Simmonds

The dark shadow of the Holocaust experience lies across the beauty and determination of Elena Zadik’s experience. But, rather than force it onto the reader’s conscience or consciousness, it slowly seeps in as the story develops. It is a wonderful book, telling a remarkable story, beautifully produced and hauntingly memorable

Nick Baines, Bishop of Leeds

'It brings with it an unfathomable power and richness… a visual and a nostalgic treat… [and] a quietly political book'

Observer, *Graphic Novel of the Month*

[An] exquisite graphic memoir…funny, heartfelt and poignant… Elena is written with love but also with honesty

Jewish Chronicle

[A] moving and ingenious book… this unvarnished portrait of a funny, rude, wilful, astonishing figure is a fitting tribute to a woman who "ran through the 20th century without looking back"

New Statesman

It’s the small observations that linger: how she wore her glasses, battered her car’s gearbox and knitted "generously and abundantly".

Guardian, *Books of the Year*