Alison Leslie Gold obituary
We were sad to hear of the death of Alison Leslie Gold, author of Found and Lost: Mittens, Miep, and Shovelfuls of Dirt.
This obituary was published in The New York Times:
GOLD–Alison Leslie. Author Alison Leslie Gold, who died on 9 September 2025, at the age of 80, described herself as “a salvager of other people’s stories that seem to be on the brink of extinction”. She was best known for Holocaust-related nonfiction books, starting with Anne Frank Remembered: The Story of the Woman Who Helped Hide the Frank Family (1987), a collaboration with Miep Gies that has been translated into more than 20 languages. A New York Times best-seller, the American Library Association listed it among the Best of the Best: Twenty-Five Years of Best Books for Young Adults (1994). Other books include Fiet’s Vase and Other Stories of Survival, Europe 1939-1945 (2003) and, for young readers, Memories of Anne Frank: Reflections of a Childhood Friend (1997), A Special Fate: Chiune Sugihara, Hero of the Holocaust (2000), a Notable Book for a Global Society. Gold explored other subjects, producing over a dozen books. Several were adapted for stage and screen. Clairvoyant, the Imagined Life of Lucia Joyce (1992), The Devil’s Mistress: The Diary of Eva Braun, the Woman Who Lived and Died with Hitler (1997) a National Book Award nominee, and The Woman Who Brought Matisse Back from the Dead (2014) blended fact with fiction. In the autobiographical Found and Lost: Mittens, Miep, and Shovelfuls of Dirt (2017) Gold reckoned with her own personal history. The Times Literary Supplement review noted the book’s “wry humour and quiet desolation.” Gold’s central characters were the overshadowed, the marginal, the unsung hero, whom she portrayed with dignity and tenderness. She stretched genres, played with language, writing until the end of her life. Isaac Bashevis Singer observed that her “simple style hypnotizes the reader”. A native New Yorker, Gold traveled the world, maintaining beloved homes in Hydra, Greece and New York City. Gold is survived by her sisters, Nancy and Maggie Greenwald, nieces and nephews, and her son, Thor Gold, daughter-in-law Talia Gold and grandson, Micah Gold.
