Ron Leshem

Ron Leshem (Hebrew: רון לשם‎‎; born December 20, 1976), is an Israeli author, translated to 20 languages, and a winner of the Sapir Prize, Israel's top literary award. He is best known for the film Beaufort, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He is also a television executive producer.

Leshem spent 3 years as a reporter in the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza, later on he was promoted as head of the news division at the most widely circulated newspaper in Israel Yediot Ahronot, for which he also wrote as an analyst for military affairs. By the age of 26, he started serving as deputy chief editor for Ma'ariv newspaper (one of the three major newspapers in Israel). Additionally he wrote short stories for Le Monde newspaper (France) as well as various columns in several European newspapers.

From 2006 until 2009, Leshem served as head of programming and content for Keshet Broadcasting. He was responsible for the development and production of some of the most popular and successful Israeli TV series, receiving outstanding industry awards. Series include: Arab Labor, the A-word, Traffic Light, and Homeland (the original Israeli show HATUFIM adapted and screened for two seasons after being sold to 20th Century Fox Television for Showtime cable channel).

As a novelist he has won some of the top literary Israeli awards, among them the prestigious annual literary award the Sapir Prizefor Literature for his debut novel Beaufort Beaufort was on the Israel bestseller list for 2 years selling over 150,000 copies in Israel and was translated into more than 20 languages. The film version of Beaufort, which Leshem co-wrote, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and won the Berlin International Film Festival Silver Bear for Best Director. Leshem’s second book The Underground Bazaar reached also the bestseller list and was translated into numerous languages. Leshem created and co-wrote the drama series M.I.C.E. (Ta Gordin Hebrew: {{{1}}}‎‎, 2010), which received 11 nominations for the Israeli Academy of Film and Television awards. The TV series has been sold as an American remake to NBC. Furthermore, Leshem wrote Euphoria, a mini-drama for Hot(2011) (largest Israeli Cable T.V company). Leshem is currently co-writing the second season of the Israeli version of M.I.C.E. which will air by 2014; he is also writing a mini-drama for the Israeli cable-HOT, and two feature films that are scheduled for production in the summer of 2014. Leshem is often invited as a speaker to the most distinguished universities around the world, including: Harvard, Yale, BU, Berkeley, to name a few. Leshem has also taken part in more than 60 festivals and book fairs worldwide.

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