THE REVISED EDITION · OUT NOW FROM OTHER PRESS
THE DIAMOND SETTER
A novel by Moshe Sakal
Translated by Jessica Cohen
The fates of two families—one Palestinian, one Jewish—intertwine across generations and borders, from Damascus to the ancient port of Jaffa. Revisited and newly edited, the novel returns to questions of exile, Palestinian return, inheritance, and the Arab-Jewish world transformed by 1948.
Moshe Sakal was born in Tel Aviv into a Jewish-Arab family with roots in Damascus and Cairo. He lived in Paris before settling in Berlin in 2019, where he co-founded Altneuland Press — the first Hebrew literary publisher established outside Israel since 1948.
He is the author of six Hebrew novels, including The Diamond Setter (Other Press, translated by Jessica Cohen) and Yolanda (Stock, Paris). A revised edition of The Diamond Setter was published by Other Press in September 2026. His fiction explores exile, diaspora, queer identity, and the shared Arab-Jewish world before and after 1948.
Sakal is a regular contributor to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and has also written for Le Monde, Libération, and Haaretz. His essay series "Mensch und Maschine" — nineteen conversations with an artificial intelligence on memory, the body, and what it means to be human — was published in the FAZ throughout 2025.
A two-time Sapir Prize nominee, Eshkol Prize winner, Fulbright Scholar, and Honorary Fellow in Writing at the University of Iowa, Sakal received the Berlin Senate's Literature Grant in 2021.ֿ
LATEST
“The Missing Word” — The Rumpus
On Mahmoud Darwish, the Nakba, Hebrew literature, and the stories a society is able — and unable — to tell itself.
“Maybe We Can Never Go Back” — Los Angeles Review of Books
An interview on The Diamond Setter, exile, family, and return.
Podcast listening: The Old/New Middle East, The Tel Aviv Review.
Photo: Boaz Arad
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
For full publications in German, click on this page.
“The Missing Word,” The Rumpus, September 2026
On the Nakba, Hebrew literature, Palestinian return, and the limits of the Israeli imagination.
“In Rufweite,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 2026
A new essay series.
New project: “Mensch und Maschine” – A series of philosophical essays on AI, technology, and human nature, published in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung throughout 2025. Read more in German here.
Le Monde: "Literature Must Approach AI as an Opportunity." Link or full PDF (French)
“Take us to see the Mona Lisa, Uncle Moshe!”: French, Libération or English , JBC
Instructions for Eating Granny Ora’s Kibbeh, Words Without Borders
De Beauvoir and Sartre on the Kibbutz, World Literature Today
Israel’s “melting pot” turns 70: This is why I call myself an Arab Jew, Salon
Sodom and Diaspora—Jewish Identity in ‘Call Me By Your Name’, IntoMore
Excerpt from MY SISTER, The Literary Review
We Have Led Others Astray, Haaretz
Even Amid Spreading Violence, Time Mostly Stands Still in Mixed Yaffo, The Forward
