Where the Jasmine Blooms is a novel set in 2006 Lebanon. It follows Yasmine, a Palestinian Canadian woman returning to Lebanon, and her cousin Reem, a Palestinian refugee who dreams of getting out of the country. Together, they uncover family, political, and personal secrets and learn to navigate heartbreak, war and healing together. In this Q&A, the Palestinian Canadian writer Zeina Sleiman reflects on her relationship to places and the inspiration behind the novel.

Q: You have lived in a few places before arriving in Edmonton. You were born in Abu Dhabi and grew up in Montreal, Ottawa, and Lebanon. How has living in all these places shaped this novel?

Zeina Sleiman: I think I have a disconnection with physical spaces. I find it very easy to move around and leave places behind, and sometimes I wonder if it’s because we did that so often when I was younger. But one thing I noticed as I get older is that a lot of things get lost in that process: memories, opportunities for relationships, and stories. These things cement themselves in places. I wrote Where the Jasmine Blooms as an opportunity to explore the things that get lost in migration, the things that get stripped away from our memory because of the pain caused by remembering. I’ve often described my writing as a practice in remembrance, because I think I’m constantly searching for this desire to be connected to a place and to hold onto a past that has often felt out of reach.

Q: What type of research went into this book, and how much of it is based on real experience?

Sleiman: The story of the missing father, the characters, and all those details in the book are made up. However, it was very much inspired by the real-life disappearance of thousands of Palestinian and Lebanese men during the Lebanese Civil War. More than 15,000 men went missing between 1975 and 1990, and their families still don’t know what happened to most of them. They continue to pressure the government and advocate for the search of their remains. Yasmine’s father is one of those men, and I was hoping to shed light on the generational pain that comes from years of questions left unanswered. I did quite a bit of research on these stories and read narratives from the families of the missing. The other pieces that relate to life in Lebanon, in the refugee camp and the 2006 war, were inspired by my own experience. I have family members who live in Burj al-Barajni and I’d often visit on my trips to Lebanon. I was also there in 2006, so much of Yasmine’s experience fleeing the war was inspired by my own.

Q: Where the Jasmine Blooms follows two Palestinian women as they uncover family and political secrets. How does your own experience of being a Palestinian Canadian shape the way you express Palestinian cultural heritage in your writing?

Sleiman: I don’t know if I’m necessarily expressing Palestinian cultural heritage in my writing or at least I don’t intend to. I have mixed experiences with my own heritage. My parents were both born in Lebanon (my grandparents fled during the Nakba in 1948 and never returned), and so I’ve always grown up with a bit more of a connection to Lebanon as a region. At the same time, Palestinians have historically been severely mistreated and oppressed in Lebanon, so I also feel like my relationship to that area is a bit complicated. Personally, writing is about expressing my own experience in navigating the ruptures that have been created through the dispossession of that land multiple times over and a desire to just find a home. At the same time, I write from what I know, so the experiences of characters in my books often reflect experiences I’ve witnessed happen to others or relate to some of my own connections to the culture and people.

Q: Can you tell us more about the two main characters and how they came to you?

Sleiman: Yasmine and Reem are sort of an amalgamation of a lot of women I know. The entire book is something of an ode to Arab women, the quiet struggles they’ve had to endure and the weight they carry in their lives. Reem is very much inspired by my grandmother, who was a very strong-willed woman who supported communities and loved those around her. Yasmine is the quiet woman who endures and learns to process things slowly. I wanted to offer both types of women an opportunity to imagine healing and holding each other’s grief.

Q: Who did you imagine reading this book while you were writing, or rather, who do you think needs to read this book now?

Sleiman: I had two main audiences in mind when I wrote it. The first are people like me, who are searching for a book that feels real to our own experience and isn’t written to cater to a particular audience. There are very few books out there that are set in Lebanon and written in the English language. There are also few books that center Arabs and Muslims fully. I didn’t overexplain things because people like me would understand some of the nuances and references. However, there’s a glossary at the end of the book for those who don’t speak Arabic, so I think it is still accessible to people outside the culture. But I wanted other Arabs and Muslims to feel seen in this novel and I wanted it to be authentic.

The other audience is people who are curious about what life looks like in contemporary Lebanon, for Palestinians and for Arabs generally. For me, literature is an invitation to explore the intimate lives of other people, and this book is an invitation for others to see and experience a different world. Sometimes that might mean that a little effort is required, but I promise you won’t be disappoint