Ella Blumenthal’s story of surviving the Holocaust and building a new life in South Africa is a lesson in resilience, attitude and joy.

From the dying embers of the Warsaw Ghetto to the gas chambers of the Nazi concentration camps; from Poland to Paris, Palestine and eventually Cape Town; from stateless refugee to community pillar, Ella’s 100 years of life have been nothing short of herculean.

After decades, Ella is finally ready to tell her full story to bestselling author Joanne Jowell.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

With an academic background in English and Psychology, and a brief but formative stint in managing consulting, Joanne Jowell began writing professionally at age 28. Her first book, Managing the Quarterlife Crisis: Facing life’s choices in your 20s and 30s, was published in 2003. Over the course of a Masters degree in Creative Writing and numerous subsequent books, Joanne has created a signature style of creative non-fiction which examines the multiple voices that collide in any single life story, and sets the author as character too, voicing the reader’s thoughts and exploring our own access points to a story which, at first glance, may seem entirely different to our own. In this way, Joanne explores our shared humanity and celebrates the extraordinary lives of ordinary people. Joanne’s bestselling biographies include On the Other Side of Shame: An Extraordinary Account of Adoption and Reunion and Zephany: Two mothers, one daughter. An astonishing true story. She lives in Cape Town, South Africa with her husband and three children. I am Ella is her seventh book.

'I am Ella: A remarkable story of survival, from Auschwitz to Africa' is published by Kwela Books, an imprint of NB Publishers