The Syrian Ladies Benevolent Society by Christine Estima

With imaginative aplomb and abiding passion, The Syrian Ladies Benevolent Society masterfully traces the deep roots of the Arab immigrant experience. These unforgettable 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.

The line of daring women culminates in Azurée, a young Arab woman living in the echoes of her ancestors' voices.

CHRISTINE ESTIMA is an Arab woman of mixed ethnicity (Lebanese, Syrian, and Portuguese) whose essays and short stories have appeared in the New York Times, the Walrus, VICE, the Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, Maisonneuve, and many more. She was shortlisted for the 2018 Allan Slaight Prize for Journalism, longlisted for the 2015 CBC Canada Writes Creative Nonfiction prize, and a finalist for the 2011 Writers’ Union of Canada short prose competition. Born in Trois-Rivières and raised in Montreal, she lives in Toronto.