The Syrian Ladies Benevolent Society
“Vivid and arresting from the very first line, this accomplished debut will leave an indelible imprint on your heart and mind with its powerful prose and compassionate storytelling. This collection weaves women together through the fabric of time and through their bravery, humanity, and hope even in the face of atrocities and defeat. Compulsively readable and intricately wrought, The Syrian Ladies Benevolent Society is a must-read from a writer to watch.”
— Marissa Stapley, New York Times bestselling author of Lucky
Cover photography by Meaghan Ogilvie, design by Lucia Kim
“Christine Estima’s debut is startling and heartrending, generous and vivid. It’s easy to fall in love with Christine’s insistence on compassion for women who were afforded little of it. With extraordinary prose and boundless empathy, The Syrian Ladies Benevolent Society asks us to consider if we are inevitable products of our family history. No matter what answer you land on, this book will transform you.”
-Elamin Abdelmahmoud, New York Times bestselling author of Son of Elsewhere, and host of CBC Radio’s “Commotion”
“Gorgeous and gutting, the Syrian Ladies Benevolent Society asks (screams, whispers), what makes us? Are we our pasts, all our histories and families and generational traumas stacked on top of eachother like a piece of additive sculpture? Or are we our present, our choices, remaking ourselves each day in a continual act of becoming? Instead of answering with either/or, this books says (screams, whispers), over and over again, yes.”
-Natalie Zina Walschots, author of Hench
“In The Syrian Ladies Benevolent Society, the past is very much a living character that shapes and informs the present moment. Christine Estima has penned a refreshingly vibrant and multicultural portrait of Montreal that braids together different branches of the historical record with precise prose and a sharp eye for human complexity.”
—Dimitri Nasrallah, author of Hotline
The Syrian Ladies Benevolent Society
The Syrian Ladies Benevolent Society, published by House of Anansi Press, was released on November 14, 2023! Order your copy on Amazon, Indigo, Barnes & Noble, Waterstones, Walmart, Target, your local bookshop on the corner, or your local library. More ordering details below!
Press reviews
The Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) has named THE SYRIAN LADIES BENEVOLENT SOCIETY one of the BEST BOOKS OF 2023! Read more here!
“Christine Estima's vibrant story collection highlights the heart and history of the Arab diaspora in Montreal.” -CBC The Next Chapter
“The poignancy of separation and broken promises abides across generations […] “In many ways,” Estima wrote in Maisonneuve, “Arab Montrealers can be ethnically invisible.” In this collection, her precise and sensitive depiction of those striving to situate themselves in the city, as well as in Toronto, renders them visible. Readers will appreciate the inclusion of a family tree and the dating of each story, which help orient this deeply personal project.” - LITERARY REVIEW OF CANADA
“Across the varying settings and time periods, what remains consistent is Estima’s detailed and evocative prose as she weaves a haunting tale of how the pain of loss — whether of our home, our loved ones or our sense of self — reverberates across generations.” - Maisonneuve Magazine
“The 13 superb stories in Christine Estima's debut could easily stand alone; reading them together turns the collection novel-esque […] Her humor, too, is appreciatively irreverent, with lines like "if heaven is full of louts... then hand me the sunscreen for hell." In writing across cultures, borders, and centuries, Estima credits her ancestors with direct inspiration: "I hear your voices in my veins; you will not be forgotten." Neither will Estima's enthralling writing.” - Shelf Awareness
“The material in these stories often does more than just flirt with dark subject matter, but the author’s empathy and sharp understanding of human frailty nevertheless injects The Syrian Ladies Benevolent Society with the vibrancy of life. The book opens with a reference to fire, and Estima is a valiant recorder of the heat that burns us, inside and out.” — Steven Beattie, That Shakespearean Rag
“Memorable, vivid, and subversive at times, the stories bring to life a type of female experience seldom seen in immigrant narratives. Estima said her female characters break traditional preconceptions of womanhood, specifically Arab women.” -New Canadian Media
“UNSELFCONSCIOUS, UNFLINCHING, UNAPOLOGETIC, The Syrian Ladies’ Benevolent Society by Christine Estima is a genuine and compelling narrative […] The Syrian Ladies’ Benevolent Society is smart, elegant, and a necessary contribution to the overall literature challenging so many suffocating cultural stereotypes in Canadian society.” - The Miramichi Reader
The Syrian Ladies Benevolent Society excerpted in The Toronto Star, November 25, 2023, full page feature
Details
Indelible linked stories centred around Azurée, a young Arab woman living in the echoes of her ancestors' voices.
Masterfully tracing the deep roots of the Arab immigrant experience, these interlocking stories follow an Arab family as they flee the Middle East in the nineteenth century, settle in Montreal in the twentieth, and face the collision between tradition and modernity in the twenty-first. This family includes trailblazing Lebanese freedom fighters, undercover operatives in World War II, and brave Syrian refugees trying to find their place in Canadian society. This line of daring women culminates in Azurée.
As a young Arab woman living in the wake of her family's histories, Azurée contends with all the meanings of her blood-ethnicity and lineage, sexuality and menstruation, pain and death. Over the years, through many romantic entanglements, Azurée journeys from teen mallrat to searching student to troubled traveller, until she finally stands in her ancestral home ready to confront her past-and her future.
With imaginative aplomb and abiding passion, the unforgettable connected stories in The Syrian Ladies Benevolent Society explore love and suspicion, trust and betrayal, faith and despair, war and displacement in an explosive debut collection that pushes the expectations for Arab women beyond conventions, beliefs, and borders.
order TODAY!
For the digital e-reader versions, it is offered currently through Kobo, Kindle, NOOK, or Google Play Books.
CANADA
Amazon
Paperback
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Kobo E-Book
House of Anansi Press
Direct from the publisher, both Paperback and E-Pub!
Toronto
Type Books
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Book City
University of Toronto
Queen Books
Montreal
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Use BookManager to find a local bookshop near you, pre-ordering available almost everywhere!
USA
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INTERNATIONAL
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Germany
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New Zealand
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