Tamar Yellin

Tamar Yellin is the author of three published works of fiction. Her debut novel, The Genizah at the House of Shepher (2005) was inspired by her own family history and follows the Shephers through four generations from Lithuania to Jerusalem and London. It was awarded the Harold U. Ribalow prize, the Sami Rohr prize for emerging Jewish writers and shortlisted for the Jewish Quarterly/Wingate prize. Her follow-up, Kafka in Brontëland and other stories (2006), addresses universal themes of exile, identity and belonging, issues that are further explored in Tales of the Ten Lost Tribes (2008).

For several years Tamar has co-led an NHS-funded writing group for people with long-term health problems, along with another, smaller group in the home of an elderly person with limited mobility. For over twenty years she has worked as Jewish faith tutor for Bradford’s Interfaith Education Centre and is especially passionate about fostering understanding between Muslims and Jews. A lifelong Brontë enthusiast, she also works as a volunteer guide and speaker at the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

Tamar received her B.A. degree from Oxford University in Hebrew and Arabic. She has worked as a primary school teacher and a college lecturer in Judaism. She recently completed a gothic novel, set in a Victorian hydro over 160 years and dealing with obsessive love, madness, suicide and ghosts, both literal and metaphorical. There are some Jews in it, too.