The news of Mark Raphael Baker’s death came as a terrible shock. All of us at Text are devastated for his family, and for the loss of such a kind and brilliant man. Mark’s passion for his family and friends, for his writing, and for Jewish culture and genocide studies, was central to his life, as was his sense of humour and ability to draw people together to share ideas and love.

Mark’s brave and groundbreaking book The Fiftieth Gate has become a classic in Holocaust literature. In the words of Phillip Adams, ‘Baker does with memory what Rembrandt does with light. He uses it to model, to imagine, to illuminate, to astonish.’ His deeply moving memoir, Thirty Days: A Journey to the End of Love, is a powerful portrait of grief, of a loving marriage and of a family.

We have lost Mark, but we still have his books and writing to remind us of his superb gifts as a storyteller and a guide to our explorations of the mind and soul.

Our thoughts are with Mark’s family and the wider community he was so much a part of.