Life Is Rosi: Grandma, Me and Our Diaries at 23

A fresh, funny family history following the lives of comedian Jess Robinson and her German Jewish grandmother Rosi

When Grandma Rosi was 23, she was expelled from Nazi Germany and interned as a refugee in Zbąszyń, Poland. She used her diary to document every detail of her experiences, from being deported by the Gestapo to stolen conversations with her first love.

When Jess was 23, she was living in London, struggling with a fledgling acting career, a failed love life and rock-bottom self-esteem. She used her diary to rant about her mum and track her daily calories. Well, it was the noughties…

Rapidly approaching her 40th birthday – and, honestly, wanting an EU passport to beat the airport queues – comedian and impressionist Jess Robinson finally digs into the archives of her German Jewish ancestry. With each freshly translated page of her grandmother’s wartime diaries, Jess sets out to discover who Grandma Rosi really was – and maybe learn a thing or two about herself. After all, it’s easy to forget who you really are when you spend every day pretending to be other people…

Bravely reopening her own diaries (which had been very securely locked away for nearly two decades), Jess follows the two young women as they navigate life at 23, finding a shared sense of identity despite their entirely different circumstances.

Exploring everything from lessons in resilience to the traits we inherit from our matriarchs – and not forgetting trying to make new friends at the German embassy – Life Is Rosi is a warm, witty and wise book that gets to the heart of who we are, wherever we are.