Auslaender
One family's story of escape and exile
Published on 22. January 2026
978-1-80522-880-6 (ISBN)
Description
In this poignant and unflinching memoir, Michael Moritz, one of his generation's best-known venture investors, puts himself and the history of his family under the microscope. Exploring their journey through documents inherited on the death of his mother takes him into a past of tragedy, inherited grief and the long shadows cast on Jewish life by World War II.
By setting this journey against the convulsive context of Trump's America, its hatred, intolerance and ignorance, he creates a memoir that feels immediately relevant. That, as the narrator asserts, if it can happen somewhere, it can happen here.
At turns both poetic and interrogative, Auslaender is a memoir of painful recollection and an insightful examination of contemporary America.
By setting this journey against the convulsive context of Trump's America, its hatred, intolerance and ignorance, he creates a memoir that feels immediately relevant. That, as the narrator asserts, if it can happen somewhere, it can happen here.
At turns both poetic and interrogative, Auslaender is a memoir of painful recollection and an insightful examination of contemporary America.
Reviews / Votes
Auslaender casts a unique shaft of light into the darkest years of European history, and a profoundly moving, personal story of disaster and triumph unlike any other you will read. * Andrew Marr, writer and broadcaster * A magisterial act of filial piety. Michael Moritz encodes and decodes his emotional DNA - and what that means for his reading of the world now. It is rare to be invited to see our world so fully through someone else's eyes. * Neil MacGregor, former director of the British Museum and the National Gallery * 'Michael Moritz's career as a tech investor has been astoundingly successful, a classic version of the American Dream. Yet this powerful memoir is focused on his Ashkenazi Jewish roots and his enduring sense of being a "foreigner," whether growing up in gritty South Wales or reaching the top in glamorous Silicon Valley. Alienated by recent political developments on both sides of the Atlantic, he articulates a sense of homelessness that many readers will recognize. Once a journalist, he writes with elegance but also with disarming candour.' * Niall Ferguson, Milbank Family Senior Fellow, the Hoover Institution, and author of The House of Rothschild * When Michael Moritz was diagnosed with a genetic disease, it launched him on a bracingly honest search into his heritage. It's an inspiring and unsettling family and religious tale, but also something larger: a guide to how we all struggle to figure out what we must embrace and what we want to banish from our past. * Walter Isaacson author and biographer of Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Albert Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Product notice
Reflowable
Illustrations
40 images, one plate section of 16 pages
File size
13,55 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-80522-880-6 (9781805228806)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Michael Moritz was born in Cardiff, Wales in 1954. A former Time journalist and regular contributor to the FT, he is the author of several books, including The Little Kingdom, the story of Apple's years as a private business. He was a partner in Sequoia Capital for 35 years and led the business between 1995 and 2012, becoming one of the most successful investors of his generation. Together with his wife, the author Harriet Heyman, he formed Crankstart in 2001 - a San Francisco-based foundation devoted to helping those who might otherwise be left behind.
