Coming January 14, 2025

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The Abadi Family saga begins when a modern-day Romeo and Juliet story between a Palestinian and a Jew ends in predictable tragedy. The family flees to America to mend, but encounters only more turmoil that threatens to tear the family apart.

In the wake of the 1967 Six Day War, Tamar Abadi’s world collapses when her sister-in-law is killed in what appears to be a terror attack but what is really the result of a secret relationship with a Palestinian poet. Tamar’s husband, Salim, is an Arab and a Jew. Torn between the two identities, and mourning his sister’s death, he uproots the family and moves them to the US. As Tamar struggles to maintain the integrity of the family’s Jewish Israeli identity against the backdrop of the American “melting pot” culture, a Palestinian family moves into the apartment upstairs and she is forced to reckon with her narrow thinking as her daughter falls in love with the Palestinian son. Fearing history will repeat itself, Tamar's determination to separate the two sets into motion a series of events that have the power to destroy her relationship with her daughter, her marriage, and the family she has worked so hard to protect. This powerful debut novel explores Tamar’s struggle to keep her family intact, to accept love that is taboo, and grapples with how exile forces us to reshape our identity in ways we could not imagine.

Advance Praise

"Zeeva Bukai writes as perceptively about romantic love and family life as she does about the wider forces that haunt it: war and exile, love across borders, the long, torturous shadow of the past. The Anatomy of Exile is a compassionate, searing and full-of-life that bears witness in important ways."—Elizabeth Graver, author of Kantike, winner of the National Jewish Book Award

“In The Anatomy of Exile Zeeva Bukai beautifully weaves one Mizrahi family’s tragic tale of love and loss and deftly illuminates the liminal space between places and languages, Arabness and Jewishness. With great empathy and profound insight, Bukai explores our attachment to place, family, and tradition and the lengths we would go to protect them, showing history repeating itself in inexplicable yet inevitable ways. The Anatomy of Exile is a remarkably assured debut—radiant, intelligent, and deeply moving.”—Ayelet Tsabari, author of The Best Place on Earth, The Art of Leaving, and Songs for the Brokenhearted, winner of the Sami Rohr prize.

"In Zeeva Bukai's stunning debut, the burden of history is masterfully woven into the intimate journey of an Israeli family. With elegant prose and unflinching honesty, this novel about love, betrayal, and exile reminds us of the necessity of storytelling in troubled times."—Amy Gottlieb, author of The Beautiful Possible

"The heartbreak of being exiled from the land of your birth is beautifully described in this wrenching novel, a deep dive into the immigrant experience, family dynamics, and the misunderstandings that needlessly divide people. The fiber of loyalty is tested until it frays--yet redemption does come and is sweet. The Anatomy of Exile, both timely and timeless, is a startlingly brave debut."—Chris Cander, bestselling author of The Young of Other Animals

"Zeeva Bukai has written a gorgeous, soulful novel whose aching, mismatched characters limp bravely towards love even when it wounds them to the quick. But even more, she’s written a portrait of Israel as a young country and reveals the enormous and even magnetic power this sacred ground exerts on those who call it home."—Yona Zeldis McDonough, Fiction Editor, Lilith Magazine

"Zeeva Bukai’s The Anatomy of Exile is a captivating and moving account of displacement, sacrifice, and ultimate loss. With expansive prose and deft dialogue, Bukai interrogates the ways in which a family attempts to love each other in spite of differing cultures, and how the world conspires to prevent it. But this is also a universal narrative; one that might take place anywhere and at any time. Such is the power of love, and the story that Bukai so beautifully invites us to enter into. I loved this book."—Marcia Butler, author of Oslo, Maine, and The Skin Above My Knee

"Propulsive and gorgeously written. With meticulous observation that misses nothing, Zeeva Bukai brings to life two worlds and a family torn between them. What is home? Who are we when the ground shifts beneath us? How can we sustain love and hope in the face of betrayal? A richly textured novel brimming with insight and compassion. I was riveted from the first page."—Joan Leegant, author of Displaced Persons