The Syrian Ladies Benevolent Society

A masterful story collection that celebrates the meaningful ways Arab immigrants have shaped the fabric of Canadian society.

With imaginative aplomb and abiding passion, The Syrian Ladies Benevolent Society traces the deep roots of the Arab immigrant experience in Canada. Most importantly, this collection offers the unique stories of Arab women and the struggles they face when years of tradition collide with modernity.

A grandmother finds financial independence collecting empties after resettling in Montreal as a refugee, an undercover agent uses her racial ambiguity to aid the Canadian siege in the Battle of Ortona, a widow writes a letter inviting her first love from Beirut to join her in Montreal, a woman tours the home where her grandparents lived during the 1940s and then climbs Mount Royal to visit their graves, a teen girl becomes a mallrat to fit in with the popular kids, a young Arab woman is moved by all the meanings of her blood — her ethnicity and lineage, her sexuality and menstruation, pain and death.

Often funny, sometimes surprising, and occasionally tragic, these stories explore love and suspicion, trust and betrayal, faith and despair, war and displacement.