“The Art of Leaving”
Award-winning Israeli author Ayelet Tsabari will discuss her new intimate memoir, The Art of Leaving: Language, Longing, and Belonging, in this afternoon of conversation and selected readings from the book. The afternoon’s moderator is Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber, associate professor, Communication, Journalism & Media Department, Suffolk University.
Thursday, October 31, 2019
12:15-1:30 p.m.
Poetry Center, Mildred Sawyer Library, Second Floor
73 Tremont Street, Boston
Author of the award-winning The Best Place on Earth and The Art of Leaving: Language, Longing, and Belonging, Ayelet Tsabari will speak of growing up Mizrahi in Israel, about re-finding and reclaiming that identity through writing and through extensive research into Yemeni culture and traditions. Tsabari will share some of the unique challenges she has faced as an immigrant author writing about Israel in English, her second language. This lecture will explore the many ways in which a writer’s cultural background, mother tongue, and origins influence and inform her writing, in terms of both content and style.
Praise for The Art of Leaving
The Art of Leaving is a marvel of a book, at once tender and fearless, from a writer at the peak of her creative powers.” – Kamal Al-Solaylee
About Ayelet Tsabari
Ayelet Tsabari was born in Israel to a large family of Yemeni descent. She is the author of the memoir in essays The Art of Leaving. Essays from the book have won several awards including a National Magazine Award and a Western Magazine Award. Her first book, The Best Place on Earth, won the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the Edward Lewis Wallant Award, and was long listed to the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. The book was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, a Kirkus Review Best Book of 2016, and has been published internationally. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, The Forward, and The National Post. She teaches creative writing at King’s College MFA in Creative Nonfiction and at Tel Aviv University.
