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.

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He is the author of six Hebrew novels, including The Diamond Setter and Yolanda (Stock, Paris). A substantially revised English edition of The Diamond Setter, translated by Jessica Cohen, 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.

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Sakal writes regularly for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. His essays have also appeared in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, The Rumpus, Le Monde, Libération, and Haaretz. His nineteen-part series “Mensch und Maschine” was published in the FAZ throughout 2025.

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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.​

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WRITING IN GERMAN

For essays and other writings in German, including my work for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Süddeutsche Zeitung, see my German-language page.

Essays & Publications in German

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LATEST

• SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG — NEW ESSAY“: Netanjahu loszuwerden, ist nur ein Teil des Problems” October 26, 2026 · An essay written in Tel Aviv during Israel's elections. Read in German.

• FIRST DRAFT — PODCAST INTERVIEW: Moshe Sakal in conversation on The Diamond Setter and its newly revised English edition. October 26, 2026 · Listen. 

• The Rumpus: The Missing Word - On Mahmoud Darwish, the Nakba, Hebrew literature, and the stories a society is able — and unable — to tell itself.

• Los Angeles Review of Books: Maybe We Can Never Go Back - An interview on The Diamond Setter, exile, family, and return.

• Podcast: The Old/New Middle East,  The Tel Aviv Review.​