Ayelet Tsabari was born in Israel to a large fam­i­ly of Yemeni descent. After serv­ing in the Israeli army, she trav­eled exten­sive­ly through­out South­east Asia, North Amer­i­ca, and Europe, and now lives in Toron­to, where she teach­es cre­ative writ­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to. The Best Place on Earth won the Sami Rohr Prize for Jew­ish Lit­er­a­ture and was long-list­ed for the Frank O’Connor Inter­na­tion­al Short Sto­ry Award.