Former Ottawa resident and media spokesperson for the Council of Canadians, <www.haikuboxer.com/the-philistine> Leila Marshy is of Palestinian-Newfoundland heritage; she can tell a good joke, but it bombs… Marshy is looking forward to the Ottawa launch of her new book, The Philistine, at <octopusbooks.ca/> Octopus Books on Wednesday, May 16. Marshy founded the Friends of Hutchison Street, a ground-breaking community group bringing Hasidic and non-Hasidic neighbours together in dialogue. She has published stories and poetry in Canadian and American journals and anthologies. Marshy lives in Montreal and is delighted to be back in Ottawa (where she also spent her formative years) with The Philistine, her first novel.
About The Philistine: Nadia Eid doesn’t know it yet, but she’s about to change her life. It’s the end of the ‘80s and she hasn’t seen her Palestinian father since he left Canada years ago to take a job in Egypt, promising to bring her with him. Now she’s twenty-five and impulsively decamps to Cairo only to find that his situation is more than she bargained for. Along the way she meets Manal, a young artist who becomes first her guide, then her lover. Through this unexpected relationship, Nadia rediscovers her roots, her language and her ambitions, and as her father demonstrates, the unavoidable destiny of becoming a Philistine—the Arabic word for Palestinian. With Manal’s career poised to take off and her father’s secret life revealed, the First Intifada erupts across the border.
Marshy has been working in the literary milieu in Montreal for many years and spent ten years editing Rover Arts, a ‘culture and conversation’ magazine that organized events and series and was a respected critical voice on the cultural landscape. As senior editor she contributed about 400 articles and edited ten times that. Rover Arts is now on hiatus. In 2015, Marshy returned to Ottawa for a year to work (concurrently) at the Council of Canadians.
“In Nadia’s story, certain elements are biographical but most of the details are not,” Marshy confides. “I did go to Cairo in my late 20s, spending three years there, and got involved with both the visual arts scene and the Palestine Red Crescent. Everything else is pretty much a tangent.”
The novel’s evocative title likely has a meaning that most people don’t know—Philistine (pronounced ‘filisteen’) means Palestinian in Arabic. For Marshy, Nadia’s Palestinian identity is one of the keys to her development as a character in the novel. She explains, “Being Palestinian is one of those mantles that only ever weigh heavy. You are instantly associated with terrorism and rock throwing and hijacking. For many reasons, including the fact that her father abandoned the family, coming to terms with her Arab heritage is a challenge for Nadia. It pulls at her but it also taunts her.”
Filisteen is the transliteral way of writing Philistine. The Philistines were also the ancient people of present-day Palestine. From Marshy, “It’s a way of countering the dominant narrative that Israel/Palestine belongs only to the descendants of an ancient Hebrew tribe, today’s Jews. It also belongs to the descendants of the Philistines, who became the Palestinians, and who never left until forced to. Manal’s life will become one of imposed philistinism. The term philistine (without a capital P) is a cruel and judgmental one. If we were to judge Manal’s life choices from our privileged perspective, we would probably call her a philistine.”
Marshy’s long list of different careers has allowed her to draw such a rich novel, “Human beings are multifaceted and multi-talented. I’ve been lucky to have been able to practice so many different skills and talents – I’ve been an app designer, marketer, baker, farmer, filmmaker, teacher, and journalist. These experiences have given me enormous insight into the human condition. There are so many different ways in which people are ambitious, competent, ethical, principled and generous. And of course, there is the flip side. Greed is one of the ugliest things on this earth. Through it all, writing has been an almost completely private and hidden pursuit. It’s like singing in the shower!” she adds.
Ann-Marie MacDonald: « Leila Marshy beautifully captures what it’s like to be at once deeply rooted and displaced, fiercely committed to truth, while enabling the lies that lovers tell. A sweet and bitter coming of age story that spans–and transgresses–sexuality, culture and countries. »