Finalist for the 2022 Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize
Elegant, surprising stories about Palestinian immigrants in Canada
navigating their identities in circumstances that push them to the
emotional brink.
Saeed Teebi's intense, engrossing stories plunge into the lives of
characters grappling with their experiences as Palestinian immigrants to
Canada. A doctor teaches his girlfriend about his country, only for her
to fall into a consuming obsession with the Middle East conflict. A math
professor risks his family's destruction by slandering the king of a
despotic, oil-rich country. A university student invents an imaginary
girlfriend to fit in with his callous, womanizing roommates. A lawyer
takes on the impossible mission of becoming a body smuggler. A lonely
widower travels to Russia in search of a movie starlet he met in his
youth in historical Jaffa. A refugee who escaped violent circumstances
rebels against the kindness of his sponsor. These taut and compelling
stories engage the immigrant experience and reflect the Palestinian
diaspora with grace and insight.