- Rīnīh al-Ḥāyik (1959-, Lebanon) – Rasāʾil min Kanadā (‘Letters from Canada’, 2012). When her surgeon husband is shot in his car in Beirut during the war in Lebanon, the widowed wife decides to leave for Canada, where part of her family is already settled. She first travels alone, with the intention of bringing her three children over later. This proves to be difficult however, and all she is able to do is send her children in Lebanon letters and whatever money she has left. While she remarries and starts a new family in Canada, her children grow up in an orphanage and witness their country descend into war.
- Inʿām Kachachī (1952-, Iraq) – Ṭishshārī (2013, English trans. The Dispersal, 2022). Heroine of Ṭishshārī is Wardiyah, an elderly doctor working in Southern Iraq who is forced into exile together with her three daughters after threats by militias. Wardiyah flees to Paris and lives in her brother’s house where she recalls living in the Iraq of the 1950s, when different segments of society intermingled as one. The novel also follows the life of the three daughters, particularly the eldest, who becomes a doctor in Canada. The title of the novel, Ṭishshārī, refers to the dispersion of the ‘Iraqi family’, as the word in the Iraqi dialect means bullets that scatter in the air for maximal (also in O: Occupations, Professions and Hobbies: Doctor’s Stories).
- Wajdi Mouawad’s (1968-, Lebanon / Canada) play Seuls (‘Alone’, 2008) traces the hero Harwan’s search for self after he was forced into exile by the Lebanese Civil War and settled in Montreal, Canada, where he became doctoral student (reference). During the play Harwan discovers that he is in a coma and everything that he built his identity around disappears. He tries to speak Arabic and starts to paint, things he did during his childhood years, through which he relives the trauma of the Lebanese Civil war and his exile, but also re-discovers his childhood passion and joy (reference) (also in D: Disabilities, Illness, and Disorders: Illnesses: Coma).
- Imīlī Naṣrallah (1931 – 2018, Lebanon) – al-Ilqāʿ ʿAks al-Zamān (1980, English trans. Flight Against Time, 1987). Staring at the offset of Lebanon’s Civil War in 1975, an elderly couple, the main character Radwān and his wife, travel to Canada to visit their children and grandchildren, but stay after his wife decides to (reference). Radwān, who is used to his rural life in a Lebanese village, has trouble feeling at home, both in his new world and his war-torn home country. The novel describes the practical process of travelling, such as going to the city and the airport, which is at times confusing for the couple from the village, as well as their struggle to understand the lifestyle of their offspring in North America. But then, “driven by a feeling of both responsibility and homesickness”, they return, only to meet their faith on the road leading to their village (reference) (also in 1975 – 1988 Lebanese Civil War: After the Civil War).
- ʿAliyyāʾ al-Kāẓimī (?, Kuwait) – Wurūd Mullawanah (‘Colored flowers’, 2009). The second of this collection of stories, ‘Riḥlah al-Ṣumūd’, centres a Palestinian woman who is forced to leave her calm life in Kuwait for Canada after the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, where she is unable to find the same pleasant life she had before (reference).
- ʿĀliyyah Mamdūḥ (1944-, Iraq) – al-Maḥbūbāt (2003, English trans. The Loved Ones, 2007). When he learns that his mother is in a coma, Nādir, a man of Iraqi descent living in Canada, travels to Paris to sit beside her hospital bed. During visits of her friends and well-wishers, Nādir is forced to confront his difficult relationship with his mother. The novel tells of live in exile in Canada and Paris, but also focuses on wartime in Iraq. This novel won the 2004 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Arabic Literature (also in D: Disabilities, Illness, and Disorders: Illnesses: Coma and F: Children and Family Life: Parent and Child: Mother and Child).
- Fātiḥah Murshīd (1958-, Morocco) – Inʿitāq al-Raghbah (‘Emancipation of the desire’, 2019). Protagonist of this novel is ʿAzaldīn, whose wife Maryam divorces him when he confesses to wanting a sex-change, after which she suggests he go to a psychologist and forbids him from seeing their son Farīd. The novel follows ʿAzaldīn’s trip to Montreal, Canada, where he goes through the process of sex-change and settles afterwards. His son Farīd, who grew up to be a doctor, eventually follows him to Canada. The novel is a plea for the equal treatment of people who change their gender (reference) (also in L: Love, Lust and Relationships: LGBTQ+: Sex Change).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Rachel M. Watson. 2018. “Wjadi Mouawad’s ‘Seuls’: When the body performs memory.” Arab Stages 9, p. 1, 6
- Rebecca Leaman. 1988. “Flight Against Time.” Canadian Woman Studies 9(1): 102-103, p. 102
- Hartmut Fähndrich. 2016. “Chapter 6: Losing Home. Out of the Coziness into the Cold: Glimpses of the Idea of Home in a Few Novels of Modern Arabic Literature,” in Representations and Visions of Homeland in Modern Arabic Literature, eds. Sebastian Günter and Stephan Milich. Georg Olms Verlag: Hildesheim, Zürich, New York. pp. 103-115, p. 106
- Ḥassan Khāṭir. 2009. “Wurūd Mullawanah li-ʿAliyyāʾ al-Kāẓimī.” www.diwanalarab.com, 14 February 2009, https://diwanalarab.com/%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%AF-%D9%85%D9%84%D9%88%D9%86%D8%A9-%D9%84%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%A1 (last accessed 3 December 2023)
- ʿAdnān Ḥusayn Aḥmad. 2019. “‘Inʿitāqar al-Raghbah’ Riwāyah Jarīʾah Tarṣud al-ʿUbūr ila al-Jins al-Ākhir” www.alquds.co.uk, 15 May 2019 https://www.alquds.co.uk/%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%B9%D8%AA%D8%A7%D9%82-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%BA%D8%A8%D8%A9-%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%AC%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A6%D8%A9-%D8%AA%D8%B1%D8%B5%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%A8/ (last accessed 14 November 2021)