Yaara grew up in a Kibbutz in Israel, a socialist farming community on the banks of the river Jordan. After two years of compulsory military service in the Israeli Air Force she moved to Devon in the UK where she still lives. Yaara has spent many years as a teacher of both children and adults. She loves to swim in rivers and in the sea.

Night Swimming in the Jordan is a beautiful, compelling and important novel, which explores the political landscape of 1970s Israel through the story of a young girl in a Kibbutz community. A heart-breaking love story told with a powerful sense of time and place, it shows the effect of dogma and religious conflict on individuals and families. In a world that seems torn apart by difference, this novel is both necessary and timely.— Sophie Pierce, writer and broadcaster;This is a deeply satisfying read, an engaging depiction of a growing girl’s world infused with finely textured detail. The reader is plunged into Abbie’s life in the kibbutz, her first love affairs and her dawning realisation of political differences. It is a coming of age novel, a multi-generational saga, an exploration of the way in which ideology and nationalism can define individual lives. The cast of Night Swimming are so fully realised you can feel their blood flowing in your veins, share in their suffering and celebrate their small victories.— Anna Lunk, author of Amie’s Rest.