Books
‘A beautiful and moving story that brings to life a fascinating part of Jewish history’ - Claudia Roden, CBE
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Winner of the Hazel Rowley Prize
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Shortlisted for the Tony Lothian Prize
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‘Gripping, evocative, and important’; ‘the narrative has the literary verve and immersive drama of a multigenerational family novel’ - Asian Review of Books
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​‘A family chronicle, running across Iraq, India and Singapore, is brought vividly and sensitively to life’ - Jewish Renaissance
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‘A gentle reminder . . . “loving strangers” is the pattern throughout Prosser’s family history. . . In fact, perhaps it is Jewish history itself’ - Jewish Journal
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‘With his latest book, Loving Strangers, Jay Prosser brings a fascinating new geography to the maps of Jewish roots memoirs. This odyssey to reclaim his Jewish identity through the memorabilia of his mother’s complex family history is both moving and compelling. A shimmering memoir of love’s work, healing for our fractured times.’
- Nancy K. Miller, Author of What They Saved: Pieces of a Jewish Past
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‘Jay’s story is rich and fascinating. Through the prism of a family memoir, he shines a light on interracial marriage and its legacy, stories that have been previously taboo. He’s written a beautiful book that will resonate with anyone who is interested in under-represented cultures, and he is bold enough to rewrite history as we know it.’
- Lily Dunn, Author of Sins of My Father: A Daughter, A Cult, A Wild Unravelling, London Lit Lab
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​‘What is most moving in this gripping family memoir and diasporic Asian-European history is the account of how three generations in Jay Prosser’s family actively choose Jewishness. Love and historical circumstances create a hybrid, affiliative form of Jewishness that remains strange and contingent, yet also affirming in a sense of belonging that is neither territorial nor identitarian.’
- Marianne Hirsch, Author of The Generation of Postmemory: Narrative and Visual Culture After the Holocaust
'Examining the powerful drive that leads men and women literally to shed their skins and -- in mind and body -- to cross the boundary of sex, Prosser argues that sex change is, at best, a narrative. Transsexuals make for adept and absorbing authors.'
'Photographs place reality into the past tense, representing not memory but memory’s loss. They are not conduits for
the return of memory but memento mori: reminders of the fact of death itself. And it is in this, Jay Prosser tells us, that we find the gift of photography.’
'It is impossible to look at photographs of violence and suffering without questioning our role as voyeur. Are we desensitized by the proliferation of images? Or do they stir our sense of justice and act as a call to arms?’
'Elegant, absorbing, and groundbreaking'
- Diane Wood Middlebrook
'Theoretically astute and highly affective'
- Louis Kaplan
'Innovative, lucid, and thought-provoking'
- Rita Felski
The Shoah Shoe Soles from Salonika: Discovery and Recovery in Post-Holocaust Greece
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