{"title":"Syrian Authors","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"crooked-teeth-a-queer-syrian-refugee-memoir-danny-ramadan","title":"Crooked Teeth: A Queer Syrian Refugee Memoir - Danny Ramadan","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA queer Syrian refugee reckons with a life spent out of place.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“Writing this memoir is a betrayal.” So begins this electrifying personal account from Danny Ramadan, a celebrated novelist who has long enjoyed the shield his fiction provides. Now, to tell the story of his life, he must revisit dark corners of his past he’d rather forget and unearth memories of a city he can no longer return to.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eStarting with his family’s humble beginnings in Damascus, he takes readers on an epic, border-crossing journey: to the city’s underground network of queer safe homes; to a clandestine party at a secluded villa in Cairo; through Arab Spring uprisings across the Middle East, a reckless hoax that threatens the safety of Syria’s LGBTQ+ community, and a traumatic six-week imprisonment; to beaches and sunsets with friends in Beirut; to an arrival in Vancouver that’s not as smooth as it promised to be; and ultimately to a life of hard-won comfort and love.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhat emerges is a powerful refutation of the oversimplified refugee narrative—a book that holds space for joy alongside sorrow, for nuance and complicated ambivalences. Written with fearless intimacy, Crooked Teeth is a singular achievement in which a master storyteller learns that his greatest story is his own.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e--\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDanny Ramadan (He\/Him) \u003c\/strong\u003eis a Syrian-Canadian author, public speaker and adovate for LGBTQ+ refugees. His debut novel, The Clothesline Swing, was shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award, longlisted for Canada Reads, and named a Best Book of the Year by the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Book Archive","offers":[{"title":"New - Paperback","offer_id":50047952683325,"sku":"","price":26.95,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0709\/0831\/3917\/files\/71t7YlB0EzL._SL1500.jpg?v=1742932676"},{"product_id":"letters-to-kafka-a-novel-christine-estima","title":"Letters to Kafka: A Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA sweeping, tragic romance and feminist adventure about translator and resistance fighter Milena Jesenská’s torrid love affair with Franz Kafka.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn 1919, Milena Jesenská, a clever and spirited twenty-three-year-old, is trapped in an unhappy marriage to literary critic Ernst Pollak. Since Pollak is unable to support the pair in Vienna’s post-war economy, Jesenská must supplement their income by working as a translator. Having previously met her compatriot Franz Kafka in the literary salons of Prague, she writes to him to ask for permission to translate his story \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Stoker\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e from German to Czech, becoming Kafka’s first translator. The letter launches an intense and increasingly passionate correspondence. Jesenská is captivated by Kafka’s energy, intensity, and burning ambition to write. Kafka is fascinated by Jesenská’s wit, rebellious spirit, and intelligence.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eJesenská and Kafka meet twice for lovers’ trysts, but can such an intense connection endure beyond a fleeting affair? In her remarkable debut novel, Christine Estima weaves little-known facts and fiction into a rich tapestry, powerfully portraying the struggles of a woman forced to choose between the roles of wife, lover, and intellectual.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e--\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eChristine Estima\u003c\/strong\u003e is the author of THE SYRIAN LADIES BENEVOLENT SOCIETY (2023) and LETTERS TO KAFKA (2025). Her essays and short stories have appeared in the New York Times, Vice, the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the Observer, the New York Daily News, Chatelaine, the Walrus, Refinery 29, Bitch, Maisonneuve, and elsewhere.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Christine Estima","offers":[{"title":"New - Paperback","offer_id":51089454268733,"sku":null,"price":26.99,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0709\/0831\/3917\/files\/71cPL6Hm9vL._SL1500.jpg?v=1764623857"},{"product_id":"the-foghorn-echoes-danny-ramadan","title":"The Foghorn Echoes","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA deeply moving novel about a forbidden love between two boys in war-torn Syria and the fallout that ripples through their adult lives.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSyria, 2003. A blooming romance leads to a tragic accident when Hussam's father catches him acting on his feelings for his best friend, Wassim. In an instant, the course of their lives is changed forever.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTen years later, Hussam and Wassim are still struggling to find peace and belonging. Sponsored as a refugee by a controlling older man, Hussam is living an openly gay life in Vancouver, where he attempts to quiet his demons with sex, drugs, and alcohol. Wassim is living on the streets of Damascus, having abandoned a wife and child and a charade he could no longer keep up. Taking shelter in a deserted villa, he unearths the previous owner's buried secrets while reckoning with his own.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe past continues to reverberate through the present as Hussam and Wassim come face to face with heartache, history, drag queens, border guards, and ghosts both literal and figurative.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMasterfully crafted and richly detailed, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Foghorn Echoes\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is a gripping novel about how to carve out home in the midst of war, and how to move forward when the war is within yourself.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e--\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDanny Ramadan (He\/Him) \u003c\/strong\u003eis a Syrian-Canadian author, public speaker and adovate for LGBTQ+ refugees. His debut novel, The Clothesline Swing, was shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award, longlisted for Canada Reads, and named a Best Book of the Year by the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Danny Ramadan","offers":[{"title":"New - Paperback","offer_id":51674253721917,"sku":null,"price":23.0,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0709\/0831\/3917\/files\/81ywV75g4XL._SL1500.jpg?v=1778085168"}],"url":"https:\/\/thebookarchive.ca\/collections\/syrian-authors.oembed","provider":"The Book Archive","version":"1.0","type":"link"}