Israeli author to discuss ‘art of leaving’ Feb. 16

Award-winning Israeli author Ayelet Tsabari will speak Feb. 16, 2020 at the University of Louisville about her life, family, grief, searching and travels in “The Art of Leaving,” which is also the title of her memoir.

Tsabari’s free, public talk will begin at 1 p.m. in Chao Auditorium, Ekstrom Library, with a reception and book-signing afterward. Although the events are free and public, reservations are recommended by contacting Joshua Boydstun, Joshua.boydstun@louisville.edu or 502-852-0460.

The UofL Jewish studies program in the comparative humanities department offers the Naamani Memorial Lecture, which honors the memory of former UofL political scientist Israel Naamani in the College of Arts and Sciences. UofL’s creative writing program in the English department is co-sponsor.

Of Yemeni descent, Tsabari grew up in a Tel Aviv suburb, served in the Israeli army and later moved to Canada where she studied film and photography and directed two documentary films. She is a graduate of Simon Fraser University’s Writer’s Studio and the University of Guelph’s master of fine arts program in creative writing. She teaches writing through the University of King’s College, Tel Aviv University and University of Toronto.

Essays from Tsabari’s 2019 “The Art of Leaving” have won a silver National Magazine Award and a gold Western Magazine Award. Her first book, “The Last Place on Earth: Stories,” won the Jewish Book Council’s Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the Edward Lewis Wallant Award for Jewish Fiction and was a New York Times Book Review’s Editors’ Choice and Kirkus Reviews’ Best Debut Fiction of 2016.

For more information, contact Ranen Omer-Sherman at 502-852-6842 or ranen.omersherman@louisville.edu.