Dimitri Nasrallah

A vivid love letter to the 1980s and one woman's struggle to overcome the challenges of immigration. It's 1986, and Muna Heddad is in a bind. She and her son have moved to Montreal, leaving behind a civil war filled with bad memories in Lebanon. She had plans to find work as a French teacher, but no one in Quebec trusts her to teach the language. She needs to start making money, and fast. The only work Muna can find is at a weight-loss center as a hotline operator. All day, she takes calls from people responding to ads seen in magazines or on TV. On the phone, she's Mona, and she's quite good at listening. These strangers all have so much to say once someone shows interest in their lives-marriages gone bad, parents dying, isolation, personal inadequacies. Even as her daily life in Canada is filled with invisible barriers at every turn, at the office Muna is privy to her clients' deepest secrets. Following international acclaim for Niko (2011) and The Bleeds (2018), Dimitri Nasrallah has written a vivid elegy to the 1980s, the years he first moved to Canada, bringing the era's systemic challenges into the current moment through this deeply endearing portrait of struggle, perseverance, and bonding.

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Niko

From the author of the widely acclaimed Niko comes a fresh take on the political thriller, an allegory of power and privilege resurrected from the thwarted ideals of the Arab Spring. In The Bleeds, Nasrallah overturns the conventions of the political novel to focus on the corroded luxury and power structures framing the lives of those most affected by war and insurrection. For half a century, the Bleeds have ruled with an iron fist. Once hailed as the founders of an independence movement, they've long since cemented into corrupt autocrats upheld by the foreign investors who manage their region's uranium trade. The aging Mustafa Bleed orchestrated the election of his son, Vadim, but Vadim's first term has proven he's more interested in the casinos of Monaco than his new role as leader. Now that an election has set the stage for revolt, opposition leaders, foreign diplomats, and journalists are fomenting a revolution against the Bleeds. All the while, father and son grapple with bonds of love, loyalty, betrayal, and paranoia. Dimitri Nasrallah's second novel, Niko, was nominated for CBC's Canada Reads and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and has been published in four languages. His debut, Blackbodying, won the McAuslan First Book Prize. He lives in Montreal, where he teaches creative writing at Concordia University.

Dimitri Nasrallah

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