Description:
In this memoir, Lamees Al Ethari traces her transition from an idyllic childhood in a large extended Iraqi family to the relative stability of an exilic family life in Canada. Through memory fragments, flights of poetry, diary entries, and her own art, the author reveals the trauma suffered by Iraqis, caused by three senseless wars, dehumanizing sanctions, a brutal dictatorship, and a foreign occupation.
Brief description: Lamees Al Ethari is an Iraqi writer and artist who immigrated to Canada with her husband and two boys in 2008. She now teaches at the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo. Her writing and research focuses on Iraqi North American women's life narratives of trauma and migration. She has been a Consulting Editor with The New Quarterly since 2016 and is a coordinator for The X Page, a community outreach writing workshop for immigrant and refugee women in Kitchener-Waterloo. Her poetry has been published in several literary magazines. She lives in Kitchener, Ontario.
Review Quotes:
"This humane story of irrevocable loss and longing, of an everyday heroine in extraordinary circumstances, touches on urgent issues that are best grasped through narratives like this one." --Veena Gokhale, Herizons