Perle Besserman

Recipient of the Theodore Hoepfner Fiction Award and past writer-in-residence at the Mishkenot Sha’ananim Art Colony in Jerusalem, Perle Besserman was praised by Isaac Bashevis Singer for the “clarity and feeling for mystic lore” of her writing and by Publisher’s Weekly for its “wisdom [that] points to a universal practice of the heart.” Her autobiographical novel, PILGRIMAGE, was published by Houghton Mifflin, and her Pushcart Prize-nominated short fiction has appeared in The Southern Humanities Review, The Nebraska Review, Briarcliff Review, Transatlantic Review, 13th Moon, Bamboo Ridge, Lilith, Hurricane Alice, Crab Creek Review, Solstice, Other Voices, Agni, Southerly, North American Review, Page Seventeen, Midstream, and in numerous literary journals, both print and online. Her most recent books of fiction include a linked story collection Yeshiva Girl (Homebound Publications) and two novels, Kabuki Boy (Aqueous Books) and Widow Zion (Pinyon Publishing). Her latest recently novel is The Kabbalah Master (Monkfish).

Based in Hawai’i and spending part of the year in Melbourne, Australia, the author travels frequently throughout the U.S., Europe, Australia, Asia, and the Middle East, and has appeared on national and international radio and television and in two documentary films in connection with her work. Perle and her husband Manfred Steger are the co-founding teachers of the Princeton Area Zen Group.

April 17, 2020April 17, 2020

Fiction

Reunion

From early on, I’d been ruining my father’s reputation, sometimes deliberately. In my teens, I became a punk stoner with a fake

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Fiction

Reunion

April 17, 2020April 17, 2020

From early on, I’d been ruining my father’s reputation, sometimes deliberately. In my teens, I became a punk stoner with a fake diamond stud in my nose, pushed the limits however I