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Sayed Kashua is perhaps most known for the wildly popular satirical television series he created,\\xa0Arab Labor\\xa0( a phrase that in Hebrew -\\xa0avoda aravit\\xa0- usually implies \'shoddy or second-rate work\').\\xa0The show holds a mirror up to the racism and ignorance on both sides of Israel\'s\\xa0ethnic divide, and is the first program to present Palestinian characters speaking Arabic on primetime Israeli television.

Kashua was born in 1975 in Tira, and attended the prestigious Israeli Arts and Science Academy in Jerusalem. He lived in Beit Safafa, a neighborhood divided by the Green line straddling East and West Jerusalem, and then he moved with his family to a Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem.

His novels have won the Prime Minister\\u2019s Prize for Literature, and the Bernstein Prize. His 2002 novel\\xa0Dancing Arabs\\xa0has been turned into a semi-autobiographical film,\\xa0Dancing Arabs, directed by Eran Riklis and written by Kashua himself. The film\'s Israeli release was delayed due to the Gaza war this summer, but it\'s finally now showing in Israeli cinemas.\\xa0In the aftermath of last week\\u2019s tensions in Jerusalem, Ashkelon, and other parts of the country, Kashua\\u2019s message is surely increasingly urgent.

Today, host Marcela Sulak reads from his 2010 novel\\xa0Second Person Singular, which\\xa0examines the identity of Arab Israelis who have assimilated into mainstream Israeli culture. It has a complex dual plot, and among the characters are a young Arab-Israeli and a Jewish-Israeli who actually exchange identities.

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Text:

Second Person Singular,\\xa0by Sayed Kashua. Translated by Mitch Ginsberg.\\xa0Grove Press (2013).

Further reading:

Dancing Arabs, by Syed Kashua. Translated by Miriam Shlesinger. Grove Press (2004).

Let it be Morning,\\xa0by Syed Kashua. Translated by Miriam Shlesinger. Grove Press (2006).

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