Lara El Mekaui Reviews:

Mariam Pirbhai, Isolated Incident, Mawenzi House, 2022
Saeed Teebi, Her First Palestinian, House of Anansi Press, 2022

How many incidents does it take before a state admits to a systematic problem within society? Mariam Pirbhai’s debut novel Isolated Incident probes this question through a thrilling tale of angst and apprehension within a Muslim community in Ontario, concluding with the Quebec City mosque shooting on January 29, 2017. 

Following the vandalism of a mosque on the outskirts of Toronto, university student Kashif Siddiqui and his fellow members of the Islamic Cultural Centre form a security watch for the upcoming Eid-Al Adha celebrations, keeping an eye out for further vandalism and violence. After the police and religious leaders in the community disregard the vandalism as a one-off incident, the young men take it upon themselves to protect the mosque.

T​hough the ‘incident’ that gives the novel its title is central for the development of the narrative, the reaction to it ends up saying much more about Canadian society and the way marginalized communities are perceived and treated. 

Pirbhai plays with readers’ prejudices with skill. While it’s understandable that people might organize a security watch following acts of vandalism, the group in Pirbhai’s novel are met with suspicion merely for being young Muslim men. At worst, they’re seen as a national threat and labeled as extremists, militants and fanatics; at best, they’re perceived as an unnerving presence. This is evident in the character of Frank, a retired cop who, while well-meaning, still retains vestiges of his internalized fear of the other, of the brown and foreign. When Frank and Kashif see a group of teens conversing rowdily in Hindi at a coffee shop, Frank can’t help but focus on them, revealing his unease in seeing a huddle of brown men, whom he describes as looking like being on ‘the verge of a shootout.’ 

Pirbhai presents an intimate and nuanced look into religious, ethnic and cultural tensions within the Canadian experience, using an unlikely group of allies—made up of Kashif, Frank and two women named Marisol and Arubah—to offer a rich range of perspectives. Kashif aspires to be someone who ‘helps keep [his] streets safe.’ The police may be failing to defend his community, but he hopes to one day join the force and model a different approach. Frank mentors Kashif and consults on the vandalism case. Arubah and Marisol present a fascinating duo as well. 

An active member of her community, Arubah is a feminist and a practicing Muslim woman. Arubah wears a hijab and advocates for women’s right to wear what they want. Like Kashif, she plans to use her education to defend her community, specifically against dangerous and fallacious Islamophobic rhetoric, such as that used by one of her professors. Through Marisol, Pirbhai explores the complications of cultural and religious identification. Marisol, a cultural Muslim, feels at home in Islam. She’s queer and comes from a liberal, ‘open’ family. She counters stereotypical and conservative notions of what it means to be Muslim, but her sexuality becomes a point of conflict in her friendship with Arubah. Both women are young university students, majoring in Women and Gender Studies. Exposed to violence against both women and Muslims, Arubah and Marisol are forced to expand their thinking and their own positionality as women, feminists, Muslims and critical thinkers. 

A scholar of postcolonial and diaspora studies, specializing in migration, multiculturalism and diaspora, Pirbhai presents thought-provoking debates on land claims, relationality, indigeneity and diasporic and immigrant belonging throughout the narrative. Isolated Incident is a poignant and rich narrative on the tensions of belonging and othering in Canada through the perspective of a marginalized and targeted community.  

Palestinian-Canadian lawyer and writer Saeed Teebi brilliantly and humorously examines what it means to be a diasporic subject in his debut short story collection, Her First Palestinian. The epigraph of the book aptly describes the common thread in the collection: ‘We scattered quickly like sheep—We gathered, weak—/We became morsels in the stomach of a whale’ (Ahmad S. Teebi).

What does it mean to be a morsel in the stomach of a whale? If the whale represents imperial and settler-colonial powers such as Canada, Israel and Kuwait, then to be a morsel is to be a precarious subject, wearily navigating the tumultuous world and powerless to still the upheavals of one’s surroundings. Each of the nine stories in the collection has a Palestinian character, either at its centre or at its periphery. Throughout, Teebi’s collection exhibits great range in character development, subject matter, voice and plot. The stories are unpredictable, and the characters unique in their perspective.

In the titular story, Teebi juxtaposes what it means to be a Palestinian in diaspora and in Palestine. The story is narrated by Abed, a diasporic Palestinian and young doctor settling into a new position at a hospital. Abed is in a relationship with Nadia, a lawyer early in her career. When Nadia asks Abed to teach her about his country, she embraces his cause as her own. Teebi deftly explores two versions of Palestinian identity: one an assimilated, successful immigrant in Canada and the other representing those living under occupation. To Nadia’s Western gaze, the former only becomes realized through its connection with the latter. By learning about the Palestinian struggle, she comes to see Abed as a ‘real’ Palestinian, her ‘first.’ 

In ‘The Benefit,’ Teebi contrasts the experiences of two Palestinian immigrants: Kasir, who has just recently immigrated to Canada, and Mohsen, who has been in the country for several years and extends a helping hand to Kasir. Having helped Kasir make his way to Canada, Mohsen feels entitled to parade his good deeds before his community. Kasir, in turn, is exhausted by having to endlessly express his gratitude, regurgitating the importance of helping unlucky people to everyone he meets. ‘I am a refugee. I am here now, in my new country, and I am happy. But many are not lucky like me,’ he states. This narrative critiques the notion of ‘the good refugee,’ as well as the tacit conditions imposed on recent arrivals. Here Teebi questions what luck has to do with refugeehood: by leaving the only life he knew to move to Canada, Kasir is put on exhibit, expected to behave in certain ways and adhere to specific rules. He loses his agency and autonomy while Mohsen takes every opportunity to remind him of how lucky he is, and how good and gracious Mohsen is to have facilitated it. 

Obligation is a common thread in many of the stories, be it political, social or familial. ‘Do Not Write About the King’ examines the haunting legacies of dictatorial governments and the implications of immigration. When Murad, an assistant professor of mathematics, makes a flippant remark about ‘the King,’ referring to the leader of a former homeland, in an academic article, his entire family’s life in Canada is derailed. The story asks, Can you ever be free of your past or of past obligations?

Other stories like ‘Cynthia,’ ‘Ushanka’ and ‘The Reflected Sky’ are humorous, presenting absurd actions and conversations and depicting the unraveling of various characters through monologue and epistolary writing. Whether it’s an unhinged Airbnb guest leaving progressively unnerving and stalker-like notes for his host or an old romantic escaping his family to chase a long-lost would-be flame, Teebi’s tales prove highly entertaining and bizarre. ‘Cynthia’ is a unique exploration of cultural mimicry, adaptation and assimilation, as a Palestinian student fabricates a girlfriend to fit in with his roommates.

Beyond themes of immigrant being and belonging, Teebi’s stories also examine human nature and desire, the costs of career advancement, isolation and alienation, love and loss.  ​Ultimately, the collection is a refreshing contribution to the corpus of Palestinian diasporic literature, offering stories not centred around the grief of displacement and generational loss but ones that cunningly and wittingly interrogate migrant life in Canada. 

—Lara El Mekaui