Confident, original and humane, these stories
are peopled with characters at the crossroads of nationalities,
religions and communities: expatriates, travellers, immigrants and
locals. The Best Place on Earth illuminates the tenuous connections
forged, frayed and occasionally destroyed between cultures, between
generations and across the gulf of transformation and loss. In the
powerfully affecting opening story, Tikkun, a chance meeting between a
man and his former lover carries them through near tragedy and into
unexpected peace. In Casualties, Tsabari takes us into the military a
world every Israeli knows all too well with a brusque, sexy young female
soldier who forges medical leave forms to make ends meet. Poets,
soldiers, siblings and dissenters, the protagonists here are mostly
Israelis of Mizrahi background (Jews of Middle Eastern and North African
descent) whose stories have rarely been told in literature. In
illustrating the lives of those whose identities swing from fiercely
patriotic to powerfully global, Ayelet Tsabari explores Israeli history
even as she reveals the universality of war, love, heartbreak and hope.
