Ayelet Tsabari (1973‒ ) was born in Israel to a large Yemeni family, growing up in a suburb of Tel Aviv. In 1998, after serving in the Israeli army and then extensively travelling throughout South East Asia, Europe, and North America, Tsabari moved to Vancouver, Canada. Here, she studied in Capilano University’s Media Program, eventually graduating from Simon Fraser University’s Writer’s Studio and the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Guelph. Tsabari directed two documentary films during her studies in film and photography, and eventually wrote her first story in English in 2006. She is the author of The Best Place on Earth (2013) and the memoir in essays The Art of Leaving (2019). Her memoir is the winner of the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Memoir, Apple Books, CBC Books, and Kirkus Review Best Book of 2019, and was a finalist for both the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction and The Vine Awards; The Best Place on Earth won the 2015 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, the Edward Lewis Wallant Award for Jewish Fiction, was long listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and was a Kirkus Review Best Book of 2016. Tsabari’s work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, The Forward, The New York Times, Foreign Policy, and The National Post. Tsabari teaches at the University of King’s College’s MFA in Creative Nonfiction, and at Tel Aviv University.
Sources:
“About Ayelet.” Ayelet Tsabari. www.ayelettsabari.com/about/.
“Ayelet Tsabari: MFA Mentor.” University of King’s College. ukings.ca/people/ayelet-tsabari/.