Ayelet Tsabari. Photo. Twitter.

Ayelet Tsabari

Author

Ayelet Tsabari, an Israeli-Canadian writer, was born in Israel into a family of Yemeni descent. Her collection of short stories “The Best Place on Earth” was published in 2013 in Canada and is available as of March 2016 in the United States.

The book won the 2015 Sami Rohr Prize, an annual prize awarded to an outstanding literary work of Jewish interest.

The collection of 11 stories has been called “reminiscent of the early work of Jhumpa Lahiri.” From Israel to India to Canada, Tsabari’s indelible characters grapple with love, violence, faith, the slipperiness of identity, and the challenges of balancing old traditions with modern times. 

The spellbinding stories often focus on Israel’s Mizrahi Jews, featuring mothers and children, soldiers and bohemians, lovers and best friends, all searching for their place in the world.