Sayed Kashua, a well-known Israeli-Arab author and journalist, will read from a selection of his works as part of 做厙TVs Seavey Reading Series at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 20, in the Cunningham Center for Music and Arts Stretansky Concert Hall.
The reading is co-sponsored by Jewish and Israel Studies and is free and open to the public.
Kashua is best known for his humorous and satirical writing about the challenges of Jewish-Palestinian coexistence in Israel. He writes columns in Hebrew for Haaretz newspaper and has written for the Jerusalem weekly Kol Halr. He is the author of four novels: Dancing Arabs, which won the Grinzane Cavour Award for Debut Novel (Italy, 2004) and was made into a film in 2014; Let It Be Morning, which began production for the film adaptation early last year; Second Person Singular, which won both the Bernstein Prize (Israel, 2011) and the Prix des Lecteurs du Var (France, 2012); and Exposure. Kashua has also published Native, a collection of essays, and is the creator of one of Israels most popular sitcoms, Arab Labour.
He currently teaches Hebrew and writing at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The New York Times calls Kashua a master of subtle nuance in dealing with both Arab and Jewish society, and of Native, the Kirkus Reviews calls it a wickedly ironic but humane collection.
