Life's Longing for Itself is a collection of six short stories and one novella that takes us from Damascus to Montreal while exploring the anxieties, tensions, and reconciliation yearnings between immigrants and their new country, parents and children, memories and the present, choices and regret. A young widow tries to find her feet following the untimely death of her husband. Two brothers hire actors to recreate live performances of their memories. A woman reflects on a personal sacrifice made decades ago. And in the title novella, the disappearance of a seven-year-old boy sets a family of Syrian immigrants on separate paths in dealing with the tragedy.
Life's Longing for Itself is a collection of six short stories and one novella. Four of the short stories and the novella explore the Syrian diaspora experience in Canada and the struggles and dilemmas of immigrants from Syria who attempt to create a home and an identity in their new country. The two remaining short stories don't involve Syrian immigrants but explore similar themes to the other stories in the collection: memory, regret, and parent/child relationships.
"Life's Longing for Itself takes a specific community-Syrian immigrants making their way in modern-day Montreal-and, through Bassel Atallah's sure hand with intergenerational dynamics, cultural nuances, and interwoven individual narratives encompassing those who struggle as well as those who succeed, renders their experience universal. One of the strongest and most emotionally affecting debuts in years, it's a book that should not be missed."-Ian McGillis, author of A Tourist's Guide to Glengarry
"Life's Longing for Itself is a collection of linked short stories about Syrian immigrants in Québec. Atallah's pared-down style is hypnotically absorbing, expertly carrying the authentic voices of immigrants who leave behind the warmth and familiarity of their country in hopes of better prospects, only to experience new hardships exacerbated by cultural clashes and isolation. The book is masterfully structured, building to multiple emotional sucker punches, and culminating in a quiet peace."-Anita Anand, author of A Convergence of Solitudes
"Bassel Atallah is a brightly talented writer, and Life's Longing for Itself represents quite a remarkable literary debut. These seemingly simple, straightforwardly-told stories rendered, by and large, in simple and direct declarative sentences, are profoundly poignant and possess a distinct hypnotic quality, pulling the reader in with the hard-won deceptive artlessness and ironclad logic of their narration. Life itself breathes in these stories."-Mikhail Iossel, author of Sentence
Life's Longing for Itself is a collection of six short stories and one novella that takes us from Damascus to Montreal while exploring the anxieties, tensions, and reconciliation yearnings between immigrants and their new country, parents and children, memories and the present, choices and regret. A young widow tries to find her feet following the untimely death of her husband. Two brothers hire actors to recreate live performances of their memories. A woman reflects on a personal sacrifice made decades ago. And in the title novella, the disappearance of a seven-year-old boy sets a family of Syrian immigrants on separate paths in dealing with the tragedy.
