carolyn marie souaid
debut novel
A young woman enters a whole new world of attraction in a community struggling with generations of loss of land and culture. Yasmeen’s tradition-bound mother wants her to stay in Montreal, get married, and have babies. But the young Syrian-Canadian wants more. Her appetite for adventure leads her to a teaching job in the northern Quebec village of Saqijuvik. Eager to adopt her new home and its Inuit inhabitants, Yasmeen embraces every experience that comes her way: camping on the tundra, hunting for ptarmigan, sewing with the local women, and falling in love. She plunges into her northern adventure, no holds barred.
Yasmeen Haddad Loves Joanasi Maqaittik is a story of powerful love and potent lust. It is a tale of adventure, of the attempt to bridge worlds and cultures, of self-discovery in the face of the unknown. Set in the vast and beautiful North, it pushes past the standard narrative of southerners bringing “civilization” to a people who have survived in the most unforgiving of environments for over a thousand years.
Author Bio
Author of seven previous books, Carolyn Marie Souaid has performed at festivals and literary events in Europe, Canada and the U.S. and her work has been translated into French, Arabic, Spanish and Slovenian. Blood is Blood, a videopoem written and produced with Endre Farkas, won a top prize at the 2012 Zebra Poetry Film Festival in Berlin. Shortlisted for the A.M. Klein Prize For Poetry and the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, she is the recipient of numerous arts grants, including a seven-week residency at the Banff Centre in 2013. Her poems and short stories have appeared in magazines including The Malahat Review, The New Quarterly, and the Literary Review of Canada, and have been featured on CBC Radio. She lives in Montreal.
Author photo © Joel Silverstein
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