The Art of Leaving, Ayelet Tsabari
The Art of Leaving, Ayelet Tsabari
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The Art of Leaving
A Memoir

Author: Ayelet Tsabari

Narrator: Ayelet Tsabari

Unabridged: 11 hr 14 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/19/2019


Synopsis

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

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY KIRKUS REVIEWS

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, Tsabari 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, Ayelet 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.

Praise for The Art of Leaving

“The Art of Leaving is, in large part, about what is passed down to us, and how we react to whatever it is. . . . [It] is not self-help—we cannot become whatever we put our mind to—yet it suggests that we can begin to heal from what has broken us, if we only let ourselves. . . . Tsabari’s intense prose gave me pause.”—The New York Times Book Review “Shortlist”

“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

“Candid, affecting . . . [Ayelet Tsabari’s] linked essays cohere into a tender, moving memoir.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

About Ayelet Tsabari

AYELET TSABARI is the author of the memoir in essays The Art of Leaving, winner of the Canadian Jewish Literary Award and a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction and the Vine National Canadian Jewish Book Award for Non-Fiction. It was also chosen as a Best Book of 2019 by Apple Books and Kirkus Reviews. Tsabari was a co-editor, with Leonarda Carranza and Eufemia Fantetti, of the anthology Tongues: On Longing and Belonging through Language. Her first book, The Best Place on Earth, won the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the Edward Lewis Wallant Award for Jewish Fiction. It was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice book and was a Kirkus Review Best Debut Fiction of 2016 title. It was also nominated for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award.Ayelet Tsabari is a graduate of Simon Fraser University’s Writer’s Studio and the MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Guelph. She teaches in the MFA creative writing program at the University of Guelph, the MFA in Fiction program at the University of King’s College and the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Esil on December 19, 2018

4+ stars I read and really liked Ayelet Tsabari’s book of short stories, The Best Place on Earth. Her memoir, The Art of Leaving, is almost a companion to her book of short stories – she covers many of the same places and I recognize the sensibilities and experiences of her main characters. Although......more

Goodreads review by Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship on March 23, 2022

3.5 stars This is a thoughtful and well-written memoir of an Israeli woman, about her childhood, her globetrotting young adulthood, and later settling down in Canada. I was so excited to read it that I overlooked key information—namely, that it’s a memoir in essays, several previously published in sl......more

Goodreads review by Cindy H. on November 25, 2019

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for gifting me with this remarkable memoir. In exchange for the ARC I offer my unbiased review. Without a doubt I will be purchasing a physical copy of this stunning memoir so I can share it with friends and family. This collection of essays resonat......more

Goodreads review by David on March 06, 2019

3.5 rounded up to 4; weak opening, but it gets better, though her non-fiction prose is not as well crafted as her fiction. Recommended to readers who lost a parent at a tender age, current or former vagabonds, and people who became parents for the first time in middle age.......more

Goodreads review by sorrowmancer on October 16, 2024

the first page in this book -- a book by a mizrahi jewish woman born in israel -- to mention "palestine," or to mention anyone or anything "palestinian," is page 137. it appears, i want to say, a single-digit amount of times overall. i get it -- like, lots of US books written by whites and lauded as......more


Quotes

The Art of Leaving is, in large part, about what is passed down to us, and how we react to whatever it is. . . . [It] is not self-help—we cannot become whatever we put our mind to—yet it suggests that we can begin to heal from what has broken us, if we only let ourselves. . . . Tsabari’s intense prose gave me pause.”The New York Times Book Review “Shortlist”
 
“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

“Candid, affecting . . . [Ayelet Tsabari’s] linked essays cohere into a tender, moving memoir.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“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 parts of our lives and ultimately ourselves.”—Camilla Gibb, author of This Is Happy and The Beauty of Humanity Movement
 
“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 humor and heart.”—Kyo Maclear, author of Birds Art Life: A Year of Observation

“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, 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 until they shine.”—Alison Pick, author of Between Gods: A Memoir and Strangers with the Same Dream