Gail Hareven

Gail Hareven was born in 1959 in Tel Aviv

Gail Hareven was born in 1959 in Tel Aviv and grew up in Jerusalem. Her mother was the writer Shulamit Hareven, and her father was the political scientist Aluf Hareven.

She studied behavioral sciences at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev but did not finish her degree. She also studied Jewish studies at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.

For about 15 years she wrote columns for Israeli newspapers, mainly Maariv. Her novel The Confessions of Noa Weber won the Sapir Prize in 2002, and its English translation by Dalya Bilu won the Best Translated Book Award in 2009. She also wrote books for children and her work has appeared in The New Yorker.

She taught at Alma College, the Open University, the Ma'ale film school and the Writers' House in Jerusalem. She was a visiting lecturer at the University of Illinois in 2006 and an artist-in-residence at Mount Holyoke College in 2012. She became an advisory member of the Academy of the Hebrew Language in 2006 and a full member in 2011.

She lives with her partner Amnon Lord, and they have twin daughters.