Eighteen years ago, Israeli author Ruby Namdar arrived in New York, not knowing that he had just taken the first step of an incredible literary, cultural, and personal journey.  Namdar’s award-winning novel The Ruined House was his artistic response to that journey. In this talk Ruby Namdar will discuss what it means today be an “Israeli author,” and how his work re-defines this term.   He will also address his new-found relationship to the great Jewish-American authors of the previous generation, and the rewards—as well as the setbacks—of living in one language while writing in another. Note: Ruby Namdar also speaks the previous evening at Siegal Lifelong Learning on Talmud & Literature.