A bracing and vividly told story set against the backdrops of the Tunisian Bread Riots in 1984 and the Jasmine Revolution in 2010, Hope Has Two Daughters offers a glimpse inside revolution from the perspectives of a mother and daughter.
Unwilling to endure a culture of silence and submission, and disowned by her family, Nadia leaves her native Tunisia in 1984 amidst deadly violence, chaos, and rioting brought on by rising food costs, eventually emigrating to Canada to begin her life.
More than twenty-five years later, Nadia’s daughter Lila reluctantly travels to Tunisia to learn about her mother’s birth country. While she’s there, she connects with Nadia’s childhood friends, Neila and Mounir. She uncovers agonizing truths about her mother’s life as a teenager and imagines what it might have been like to grow up in fear of political instability and social unrest. As she is making these discoveries, protests over poor economic conditions and lack of political freedom are increasing, and soon, Lila finds herself in the midst of another revolution — one that will inflame the country and change the Arab world, and her, forever.
Weaving together the voices of two women at two pivotal moments in history, the Tunisian Bread Riots in 1984 and the Jasmine Revolution in 2010, Hope Has Two Daughters is a vivid story that perfectly captures life inside revolution.
A bracing and vividly told story set against the backdrops of the Tunisian Bread Riots in 1984 and the Jasmine Revolution in 2010, Hope Has Two Daughters offers a glimpse inside revolution from the perspectives of a mother and daughter.
Unwilling to endure a culture of silence and submission, and disowned by her family, Nadia leaves her native Tunisia in 1984 amidst deadly violence, chaos, and rioting brought on by rising food costs, eventually emigrating to Canada to begin her life.
More than twenty-five years later, Nadia’s daughter Lila reluctantly travels to Tunisia to learn about her mother’s birth country. While she’s there, she connects with Nadia’s childhood friends, Neila and Mounir. She uncovers agonizing truths about her mother’s life as a teenager and imagines what it might have been like to grow up in fear of political instability and social unrest. As she is making these discoveries, protests over poor economic conditions and lack of political freedom are increasing, and soon, Lila finds herself in the midst of another revolution — one that will inflame the country and change the Arab world, and her, forever.
Weaving together the voices of two women at two pivotal moments in history, the Tunisian Bread Riots in 1984 and the Jasmine Revolution in 2010, Hope Has Two Daughters is a vivid story that perfectly captures life inside revolution.
| Published By | House of Anansi Press Inc — Jan 28, 2017 |
| Specifications | 296 pages | 5.25 in x 8.5 in |
| Keywords | historical fiction; book club; books for mom; |
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Excerpt |
| Written By | Monia Mazigh holds a Ph.D. in finance from McGill University. In 2009, she published her memoir, Hope and Despair, about her fight to free her husband, Maher Arar, from a Syrian jail. Her debut novel, Miroirs et mirages, published originally in French, was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award. |
| Written By |
| Monia Mazigh holds a Ph.D. in finance from McGill University. In 2009, she published her memoir, Hope and Despair, about her fight to free her husband, Maher Arar, from a Syrian jail. Her debut novel, Miroirs et mirages, published originally in French, was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award. |
“Monia Mazigh's second novel is an engaging book in which choices abound for young Muslim women.” —The Ottawa Citizen
“Both readable and relevant, especially since the reverberations of the Jasmine Revolution are still being felt today.” —The Winnipeg Free Press
“An important work of fiction.” —Quill and Quire
“Monia Mazigh’s latest novel takes readers through a cycle of hope, uprising, despair and hope again in a story of two girls awakened by civil unrest.” —The Globe and Mail
“Hope Has Two Daughters adds significantly to a growing body of literature by and about Muslim women and sheds fresh light on a country still experiencing its own coming of age.” —The Toronto Star
“Can literature bear witness? This is the literary quest undertaken by Monia Mazigh in her novel about revolutions and families, about the Bread Riots of Tunisia and the Arab Spring. How do women come of age as dissidents? The difficult secrets shared by mothers and daughters are universal in this thoroughly imagined narrative in which a Canadian story is, necessarily, a story of the world.” —Kim Echlin, author of Under the Visible Life