ABOUT THIS BOOK

Deborah Kapchan’s Taking Leave is a lyrical memoir that encompasses journeys both inner and outer, physical and spiritual. Taking readers from New York, Paris, and Casablanca to Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi while exploring her Christian childhood, Jewish lineage, and the release she found in Islam, Kapchan examines the extent to which we can take leave of who we are to live between categories. She meditates on absence, presence, and the sublime to weave an existential tale that honors the three traditions that made her, ultimately desiring to take leave of them all. Taking Leave is an urgent plea for anti-tribalism and a timely treatise for compassionate coexistence in the spaces in-between.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Deborah Kapchan is Professor of Performance Studies at New York University.

REVIEWS

“In this moving memoir Deborah Kapchan artfully unveils the connections among Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Stretching beyond Kapchan’s journey of personal and intellectual self-discovery, this wonderful literary achievement brings us much-needed measures of inspired hope to our troubled times.”
-- Paul Stoller, author of Wisdom from the Edge: Writing Ethnography in Turbulent Times

“This book is a joy to read, speaking deeply and powerfully to a shared and fundamental human experience by means of Deborah Kapchan’s unique vision and voice. I adore this touching and remarkable book.”
-- Martin Shuster, author of How to Measure a World? A Philosophy of Judaism

"While she draws elegant parallels between faiths, Kapchan is at her most revelatory when she’s exploring spirituality itself as a kind of endless search for meaning—'taking leave' of one religion, identity, or mode of thinking to seek another—as well as contemplating the limits to that process. . . . Astute and nuanced, this resonates."
-- Publishers Weekly

"Lyrical, probing, and unflinching, the book is a meditation on presence, absence, and what it means to live between."
-- Brian K. Mahoney Chronogram

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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