The Art of Leaving

An intimate memoir in essays by an award-winning Israeli writer who travels the world, from New York to India, searching for love, belonging, and an escape from grief following the death of her father when she was a young girl. This searching collection opens with the death of Ayelet Tsabari’s father when she was just nine years old. His passing left her feeling rootless, devastated, and driven to question her complex identity as an Israeli of Yemeni descent in a country that suppressed and devalued her ancestors’ traditions.In The Art of Leaving, Ayelet tells her story, from her early love of writing and words, to her rebellion during her mandatory service in the Israeli army. She travels from Israel to New York, Canada, Thailand, and India, falling in and out of love with countries, men and women, drugs and alcohol, running away from responsibilities and refusing to settle in one place. She recounts her first marriage; her struggle to define herself as a writer in a new language; her decision to become a mother; and finally her rediscovery and embrace of her family history—a history marked by generations of headstrong women who struggled to choose between their hearts and their homes. Eventually, she realizes that she must reconcile the memories of her father and the sadness of her past if she is ever going to come to terms with herself.

With fierce, emotional prose, Tsabari crafts a beautiful meditation about the lengths we will travel to try to escape our grief, the universal search to find a place where we belong, and the sense of home we eventually find within ourselves.

Media

Read Excerpts from the book:

“A Lesser Wife,” Tablet magazine,
“How Food Connects Us to Home,” LitHub
“Yemeni Soup and Other Recipes,“ Jewish Quarterly
Listen to an excerpt from the audiobook, read by the author, PRH Audio

Read interviews with Ayelet:

“On Language, Gender, and the Stigma of Mizrahi Sentimentality: An Interview with Ayelet Tsabari,” Zaman Collective
“New Memoirs Explore Identity, Family, Food and Faith,” Hadassah Magazine
Being a Mizrahi Woman in Israel, This Yemeni Author Explains Identity Politics to English Readers,” Haaretz
“Ayelet Tsabari Discusses Embracing Her Yemeni and Mizrahi Heritage,” Paste Magazine
“Israeli Writer Ayelet Tsabari on being a Literal Wandering Jew,” Hey Alma
“A road that leads back home,” Toronto Star
Why Ayelet Tsabari had to leave her home and family behind to find her way back, CBC Books
“Ayelet Tsabari Writes Through Her Fears,” Jewish in Seattle
“Launched, Interview with Ayelet Tsabari,” The New Quarterly
Special Feature: An Interview with Ayelet Tsabari, Ninth Letter

Listen:

Shelf Talking, Literati bookstore Podcast, (segment begins 36:00).
Interview with Shelagh Rogers on CBC’s The Next Chapter, Toronto, April 13, 2019
This is the Author Podcast, Penguin Random House Audio (segment begins 11:19), where I speak about the experience of recording my audiobook.

Extra Content (links, playlist, photos) available here

Early Praise for The Art of Leaving

“Stunning… Because narratives have been imposed upon her, she seeks to reclaim them for herself. The self she portrays is complicatedly flawed, human and aware… The Art of Leaving suggests that we can begin to heal from what has broken us, if only we let ourselves….Tsabari’s intense prose gave me pause.”

—The New York Times Book Review “Shortlist”

“Candid, affecting . . . [Ayelet Tsabari’s] linked essays cohere into a tender, moving memoir.”

—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Insightful… Readers will be moved by Tsabari’s colorful, intimate memoir.”

—Publishers Weekly

“In The Art of Leaving: A Memoir, Ayelet Tsabari brings to the page the immigrant experience of being adrift from one’s origins, of leaving home, and of love in a restless search for belonging. Her voice, unfailingly honest, is pitch-perfect in bearing the full tension and complexity of what it is to be a young Mizrahi Jew in self-imposed exile. Tsabari takes you down the path untraveled, one that challenges your comfortable notions of motherhood, place, and home. Charmed by her candour and self-effacing humour, you find yourself drawn into a compelling story of exploration and return that lingers in the heart long after the book is set aside.”

— 2019 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction Jury (Ivan Coyote, Trevor Herriot, and Manjushree Thapa)

“A beautifully written and engrossing story.”

—The Toronto Star

“Told in a series of fierce, unflinching essays . . . an Israeli Canadian author explores her upbringing and the death of her father in this stark, beautiful memoir.”

—Shelf Awareness (starred review)

“The Art of Leaving will take you on an emotional journey you won’t soon forget.”

—Hello Giggles

“Beautifully written, frank and poignant.”

—CBCBooks.ca

“The Art of Leaving deftly illustrates the ways home can be any or all of the above, simultaneously or at different times in our lives. The book pushes readers to examine their own personal and political histories and to question the ways those histories fit into a bigger, global picture.”

—Quill and Quire

“Tsabari brings to her writing a clear voice and a keen ability to capture a moment in its entirety.”

—Booklist

“Gripping… a thought-provoking and tender page-turner.”

—Canadian Living

“Tsabari’s work is told in self-contained chapters that resemble short stories. They are, by turns, tragic and humorously picaresque, and often both at the same time.”

—Hyperallergic

“Superb. . . . deep in meaning, rich in imagery and continuously engaging.”

—Canadian Jewish News

“The collection’s power comes from interweaving vividly detailed glimpses of growing up Yemenite and a compelling account of the modes available for putting distance between Israel and a young person—a tiyul that becomes a sojourn, a temporary stay abroad that becomes a life. The things that push Tsabari away from Israel are the things that she carries with her.”

—Tel Aviv Review of Books

“The Art of Leaving, Ayelet Tsabari’s much anticipated memoir, could easily have been called The Art of Living. The chapters, which read like individual essays but build to a satisfying whole, are brimming in nearly every paragraph with the details of a life lived to its fullest.”

—Canadian Writers Abroad

“The Art of Leaving is a frank, beautiful exploration of a modern woman’s journey to find fulfillment and figure out the meaning of home.”

—Apple Books Featured Collection, Books We Loved

“Ayelet Tsabari is a fierce-tender writer. Her work is an enchanting mix of vivid anecdote and vigorous insight — spanning generations and geographies, glittering with humour and heart.”

– Kyo Maclear, author of Birds Art Life

“Ayelet Tsabari has written a beautiful, complex and emotionally breathtaking memoir that captures, and transcends, her journey of self-discovery as a Jewish-Yemeni woman within and beyond Israel’s borders. 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, award-winning author of Intolerable and Brown

“In The Art of Leaving, Ayelet Tsabari excavates the dark loam of her memory, unearthing treasure after treasure. Her discoveries are nuanced, complex, and beautiful. These essays are timely and urgent, and they’ve been polished ‘til they shine.”

– Alison Pick, author of Between Gods: A Memoir and Strangers Within the Same Dream

“Ayelet Tsabari’s memoir is a passionate account of the pain, fire and fury of adolescence and young adulthood, the search for a sense of belonging and reconciling the disparate part of our lives and ultimately ourselves.”

– Camilla Gibb, author of This is Happy and The Beauty of Humanity Movement

“Tsabari is in prime form, capturing in mercilessly precise prose hard-to-do-justice-to feelings. . . . This is a writer who is capable of holding your throbbing heart in one hand while pressing the tip of her pen to your jugular with the other.”

– Ivan Coyote, author of Tomboy Survival Guide and Rebent Sinner

“Long after finishing The Art of Leaving, I’m still craving adventure, and still thinking through Tasbari’s nuanced reflections on what it means to be a mother and a wanderer in a world that says women can’t be both.”

– Mandy Len Catron, author of How to Fall in Love with Anyone