Nathan Thrall

Nathan Thrall is an American writer living in Jerusalem. He won the Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction for A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy. An international bestseller, it was translated into more than thirty languages, selected as a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and named a best book of the year by over twenty publications, including The New Yorker, The Economist, and Time. Thrall is also the author of the critically acclaimed essay collection The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine. He was awarded the Rome Prize in Literature, and his work has been nominated for the Baillie Gifford Prize, the PEN Galbraith Award, the Ryszard Kapuściński Award, the Moore Prize, and the Orwell Prize. His reporting, essays, and criticism have appeared in the London Review of Books, The Guardian, The New York Times Magazine, and The New York Review of Books. He spent a decade at the International Crisis Group, where he was director of the Arab-Israeli Project, and has taught at Bard College.

Thrall’s next book is an immersive work of narrative nonfiction set in Israel/Palestine. Focused on a group of young Israelis, it will draw readers into larger questions of history, morality, belonging, and the search for self.

This bio reflects the fellow’s work and affiliations as of their fellowship year.

• “Dirty Work”: An essay for The New York Review of Books examining S. Yizhar’s Khirbet Khizeh and how the landmark Hebrew novella continues to shape debates over memory, responsibility, and the legacy of Israel’s founding.
• “A Hidden Universe of Suffering”: The Palestinian Children Sent to Jail: A Guardian long read examining the experiences of Palestinian children detained in Israeli prisons and the lasting impact of incarceration on families and communities. 
• The Separate Regimes Delusion: An essay for the London Review of Books examining the relationship between Israel, the occupied Palestinian territories, and the political arguments surrounding the idea of separate systems of governance.