{"id":11576,"date":"2015-03-27T00:13:58","date_gmt":"2015-03-27T07:13:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=11576"},"modified":"2015-03-26T17:51:07","modified_gmt":"2015-03-27T00:51:07","slug":"tsabari-gives-voice-to-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2015\/03\/27\/tsabari-gives-voice-to-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Tsabari gives voice to place"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ayelet Tsabari\u2019s short stories win Rohr Prize. (photo from @AyeletTsabari)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

One of the best contemporary works of fiction I\u2019ve read in the last few years has been Israeli-Canadian Ayelet Tsabari\u2019s The Best Place on Earth<\/em>, her 2013 debut collection of short stories. The characters and settings draw the reader in effortlessly. The conflicts are both internal and situational, and they feel urgent and real. The writing is intelligent, sexy and restrained. The judges of the prestigious Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature clearly thought so, too, as the book is the newest winner of the $100,000 US award.<\/p>\n

I recently caught up with the Toronto-based Tsabari by phone in Israel, where she was visiting family and friends. She is insightful, thoughtful and articulate, as well as warm and humble \u2013 she told me she was \u201cshocked\u201d when she heard the news of the prize. We spoke about identity, the short story form, her favorite summer spot, what makes a novel Canadian and Israeli, and how to write a decent sex scene.<\/p>\n

One of the first things that comes to mind in Ayelet\u2019s writing is the ethnicity of the characters: almost all are Mizrahi, a label with which she herself identifies. \u201cIt was really important to me to have Mizrahi characters who go about their lives, and not having their Mizrahi [identity] be an issue. That\u2019s never questioned when you have stories about Ashkenazis; that\u2019s the default. I wanted to shatter that, to break the pattern.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of Tsabari\u2019s stories are set in Canada. There is a memorable one set on Hornby Island \u2013 the tiny B.C. oasis whose peacefulness Ayelet found she was mentally contrasting with the intensity of Jerusalem \u2013 and another in Toronto. Most are set in Israel, though, revealing important themes about life, love and loss set against the background of physical insecurity. Ayelet wrote the book in Canada, was mentored by another Canadian author, Camilla Gibb, and acknowledged that others have told her the book possesses a Canadian sensibility.<\/p>\n

Ayelet confided that she tried to avoid writing a conventionally \u201cpolitical\u201d book. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to write about the war, about conflict. What I\u2019m interested in is people\u2019s lives…. But I wanted to set it against that backdrop. This is how I grew up; it\u2019s always there, the conflict, that sense of menace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, she did have what she considers a political aim. She wanted to give voice to a place that is often better known to outsiders through the media. She wanted to \u201ccomplicate things,\u201d she told me, to \u201cfocus on the lives of one family … and one person, rather than the mass of people you see when you watch the news.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why the short story form?, I asked her. While she is currently working on a couple of longer-form projects, she told me that she \u201clove[s] the brevity of [short stories]; I love imagining a life in a short span; I love the idea of a collection.\u201d She added, \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like traveling…. You get to know people, you really feel like they\u2019re a part of you, you forge what you think are lifelasting relationships, then you move on. And because so many of the characters [in the book] are transient and nomads, immigrants, and travelers, I felt that the container fit….\u201d<\/p>\n

As for how to write a good sex scene, Ayelet explained that writers should provide as much detail as they would for any other type of scene, include it only if it advances the plot and, above all, avoid euphemisms. It\u2019s good advice, really, that could be applied to most everyday interactions: as we encounter one another, we should strive to understand the inner lives of people as they really are. And, as readers, we can be grateful for glimpses of our country\u2019s fine new voices helping us understand other places at the same time as we are able to discover new truths about ourselves.<\/p>\n

Mira Sucharov<\/em><\/strong> is an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She blogs at<\/em> Haaretz and the<\/em> Jewish Daily Forward. This article was originally published in the <\/em>Canadian Jewish News. For an Oct. 11, 2013, interview with Tsabari (\u201cMaking a home in Canada\u201d) about The Best Place on Earth, visit jewishindependent.ca.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ayelet Tsabari\u2019s short stories win Rohr Prize. (photo from @AyeletTsabari) One of the best contemporary works of fiction I\u2019ve read in the last few years has been Israeli-Canadian Ayelet Tsabari\u2019s The Best Place on Earth, her 2013 debut collection of short stories. The characters and settings draw the reader in effortlessly. The conflicts are both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[784],"tags":[3473,3474],"class_list":["post-11576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-ayelet-tsabari","tag-sami-rohr-prize"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}