Rafi Zabor (born Joel Zaborovsky, August 22, 1946) is a Brooklyn, New York–based music journalist- and musician-turned-novelist.

Life and work

A graduate of Brooklyn College, Zabor became a jazz critic for Musician in 1977, and later became an editor for the magazine. He received the 1998 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for his first novel, The Bear Comes Home, which follows an alto saxophonist – who happens to be a bear – in his pursuit of musical perfection. Zabor's second book, the memoir I, Wabenzi, was commercially unsuccessful and met with mixed critical response. In 2008, Zabor received an NEA Literature Fellowship. , he was reportedly working on a new novel, to be titled The Bosphorus Dogs. Zabor is also a jazz drummer.