Welcome
My latest book, Ninette’s War: A Jewish Story of Survival in 1940s France, will be published by Profile Books in January 2025. My previous book, Facing Fearful Odds: My father’s story of captivity, escape and resistance 1940-1945, was published in 2014.
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At a time when Jews are freshly embattled and the taboo against antisemitism dissolves as the Holocaust moves further away in time, Ninette’s War provides urgent context and details we must not forget, alongside a compassionate, elegant tribute to one brave woman’s life in time.”
Zoe Strimpel, Sunday Telegraph columnist and author of Seeking Love in Modern Britain: Gender, Dating and the Rise of the ‘Single’.
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John Jay’s reclaiming of the wartime odyssey in France of Ninette Dreyfus … is spellbinding. A worthy recalling of the past in the dark times of the present.”
Colin Shindler, Emeritus Professor, University of London.
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“…a brilliant mélange of haute-couture clothes, golf and foie gras mixed with false identity papers, cyanide powder and courage.”
Anne Sebba, author of Ethel Rosenberg – The Short Life and Great Betrayal of an American Wife and Mother.
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“Facing Fearful Odds is well written … The most moving part of the book is the epilogue, where the author discusses a father always beyond his reach…”
Nigel Perrin, author of Spirit of Resistance – The Life of SOE Agent Harry Peulevé, The Times Literary Supplement.
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““…a vivid and engaging description of [Alec Jay’s] war experience…”
Bridget Galton, Features Editor and Associate Editor, Hampstead & Highgate Express.
About John Jay
John Jay was born in 1957 in Hampstead Garden Suburb, London, and was educated at University College School, Hampstead, and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he read Modern History. After graduating, he became a journalist, working initially for the Western Mail in Cardiff and Thomson Regional Newspapers’ City desk. In 1986, he became City editor of The Sunday Times and between 1989 and 2000 he ran the business coverage of The Sunday Telegraph and then The Sunday Times.
