For this Power Q & A we are joined by internationally acclaimed author Ayelet Tsabari to talk about her gorgeous debut novel, Songs for the Broken Hearted (Harper Collins, September 10, 2024).
Many of you may know of Ayelet from her widely-acclaimed memoir in essays The Art of Leaving, winner of the Canadian Jewish Literary Awards, a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction, and The Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature, and an Apple Books and Kirkus Review Best Book of 2019.
Songs for the Broken Hearted tells the story of a young Yemeni Israeli woman who learns of her mother’s secret romance in a dramatic journey through lost family stories, revealing the unbreakable bond between a mother and a daughter. This is a salient exploration of the cost of secrets and the power of women’s voices, which is a power we need to celebrate now more than ever.
Welcome to River Street, Ayelet!
Ayelet Tsabari gorgeous debut novel, Songs for the Broken Hearted (Harper Collins, September 10, 2024).
Q: The importance of women’s voices is powerfully explored in your book. Was this a topic you intended to address in the novel, or a natural response to the stories of your characters?
A: To me, that’s the heart of the novel. It’s a novel about voice and voicelessness and it’s a novel about women, about mothers, daughters and sisters. I knew I wanted to celebrate the women of my community and help amplify their stories in the world, and my two female characters, Zohara and her mother Saida, were there from a very early stage. When I discovered the tradition of the women’s songs, an oral storytelling tradition that had been passed on from mother to daughter for generations, it helped me reconcile something about the Yemeni Jewish women I knew, whom I had always regarded with awe: they were strong, loud, bold and passionate. They took no shit from anyone. But my research told me how oppressed they were, subject to the authority of men, how hard their lives had been. The songs were the women’s way to reclaim their narrative, to tell their stories, to have a voice. And there was something feminist and subversive about that. Once I began immersing myself in that tradition, it became a central thread in the novel.
More about Songs for the Broken Hearted:
1950. Thousands of Yemeni Jews have immigrated to the newly founded Israel in search of a better life. In an overcrowded immigrant camp in Rosh Ha'ayin, Yaqub, a shy young man, happens upon Saida, a beautiful girl singing by the river. In the midst of chaos and uncertainty, they fall in love. But they weren't supposed to; Saida is married and has a child, and a married woman has no place befriending another man.
1995. Thirty-something Zohara, Saida's daughter, has been living in New York City-a city that feels much less complicated than Israel, where she grew up wishing her skin were lighter, her illiterate mother's Yemeni music quieter, and that the father who always favoured her was alive. She hasn't looked back since leaving home, rarely in touch with her mother or sister, Lizzie, and missing out on her nephew Yoni's childhood. But when Lizzie calls to tell her their mother has died, she gets on a plane to Israel with no return ticket.
Soon Zohara finds herself on an unexpected path that leads to shocking truths about her family-including dangers that lurk for impressionable young men and secrets that force her to question everything she thought she knew about her parents, her heritage, and her own future. Songs for the Brokenhearted is a story about voice and voicelessness, traditions lost and found, and the unbreakable bonds between mothers and daughters.
The wonderful Ayelet Tsabari.
More about Ayelet Tsabari:
Ayelet Tsabari is the author of The Art of Leaving, finalist for the Writer’s Trust Hilary Weston Prize, winner of the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for memoir, and a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2019. Her first book, The Best Place on Earth, won the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and has been published internationally. She’s the co-editor of the anthology Tongues: On Longing and Belonging Through Language and has taught creative writing at Guelph MFA in Creative Writing and The University of King’s College MFA.