Zeeva Bukai Wins a National Jewish Book Award
Totally Booked with Zibby
Zibby Owens
4.5 • 643 Ratings
🗓️ 27 February 2026
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Congratulations to author Zeeva Bukai for winning a National Jewish Book Award from the Jewish Book Council for her novel The Anatomy of Exile. On our episode, we spoke about her new book, The World Between, which is a slim, powerful narrative about a woman who travels to Tel Aviv to the home where she first started her marriage and revisits later in her life. It’s about mental health, the after-effects of World War II, recovery, mistakes, lost love, shame, survival, and healing. It’s really short and definitely worth reading: immersive, thought-provoking, soulful. I can’t stop thinking about it — and was thrilled to hear she won the award!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby. Formerly, moms don't have time to read books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest, best-selling, buzziest, or underrated authors and story creators, whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive |
| 0:24.0 | look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't |
| 0:29.3 | have to. |
| 0:30.3 | Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests like I do every single day. |
| 0:36.2 | For more information, go to zibbimedia.com and follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens. |
| 0:44.6 | Ziva Bukai is the author of the world between. |
| 0:48.3 | Ziva is the author also of the novel The Anatomy of Exile. |
| 0:52.9 | Her stories have appeared in Carve magazine, The Masters |
| 0:55.6 | Review, McSweeney's quarterly concern and elsewhere. Her honors include a fellowship at the New York |
| 1:00.3 | Center for Fiction and Residencies at Hedgebrook Riders Colony and Birdcliffe Air Program |
| 1:06.1 | in Woodstock, New York. She is the recipient of the Masters Review Fall Fiction Prize, |
| 1:10.7 | the Kurt Johnson Prose Award, and the Review Fall Fiction Prize, the Kurt Johnson |
| 1:11.4 | Prose Award, and the Lilith Fiction Award. Her work has been anthologized and smashing |
| 1:15.3 | the tablets, radical retellings of the Hebrew Bible, frankly feminist, short stories by Jewish |
| 1:20.8 | women from Lilith Magazine, and out of many, multiplicity and divisions in America today. She |
| 1:25.8 | holds an MFA from Brooklyn College and is the |
| 1:28.1 | assistant director of academic support at SUNY Empire State University. She lives in Brooklyn with her |
| 1:33.3 | family. Welcome, Ziva. Thank you so much for coming on Totally Book to discuss the world between. |
| 1:39.0 | Congratulations. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for inviting me. |
| 1:43.9 | Of course. Oh my gosh. Your book, small but so powerful. I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Of course. Oh my gosh. Your book, |
| 1:46.4 | small but so powerful. I mean, just took my breath away, kind of powerful. Really, really good. |
| 1:53.6 | Beautifully written. Just the device of how you structured it was so clever. And don't know it just it was great that's all I |
... |
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