Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

Poetry Women Authors

Turkish Delight, Montreal Winter

by (author) Sonia Saikaley

Publisher
Mawenzi House Publishers Ltd.
Initial publish date
Sep 2012
Category
Women Authors, General
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781894770972
    Publish Date
    Sep 2012
    List Price
    $20.95

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

Turkish Delight, Montreal Winter takes the reader from Lebanon's olive groves to Montreal's frigid winters and underground malls. These closely connected poems present a narrative threaded with the rich traditions of the Middle East, from its dazzling varied food to its bustling Arabian marketplaces and passionate politics.

A lover longs to be reunited with his beloved. A woman mourns the loss of her father and must find her place in a male-dominated culture, while another must relinquish her unborn child. Honest, accessible, and humane, Turkish Delight, Montreal Winter is a strikingly moving and powerful sequence of poems exploring themes of alienation, intergenerational disconnection, love, and loss.

About the author

Sonia Saikaley was born and raised in Ottawa to a big Lebanese family. The daughter of a shopkeeper, she had access to all the treats she wanted. Her first book, The Lebanese Dishwasher, co-won the 2012 Ken Klonsky Novella Contest. She has two poetry collections: Turkish Delight, Montreal Winter and A Samurai's Pink House. Her novel The Allspice Bath was awarded the 2020 IPPY Gold Medal for Multicultural Fiction. She is a graduate of the University of Ottawa and the Humber School for Writers. Many years ago, she belly-danced her way across Northern Japan and taught English there, too. She loves eating labneh and cucumber pita sandwiches on hot summer days.

Sonia Saikaley's profile page

Editorial Reviews

"Sensuous and shocking, a turbulent voyage of a book. I never thought I'd call a volume of poetry a page-turner, but this one is." --Susan Musgrave

"Sonia Saikaley's Turkish Delight, Montreal Winter is a riveting collection where sensuous beauty, borne on a quiet music, collides with stark, often disturbing fact. Rich blues and yellows, antique sounds of sheep and worry beads, and textures and tastes aromatic of the Middle East vividly recreate a life left not entirely behind." --Susan Ioannou

Other titles by