Page 41 - Trillium Book Awards 2021, ONTARIO CREATES

Trillium Book Award
Finalist
Farzana Doctor
Seven
Dundurn Press
When Sharifa accompanies her husband on a marriage-saving trip to India in 2016, she thinks that she’s going to research her great-great-grandfather, a wealthy business leader and philanthropist. What captures her imagination is not his rags-to-riches story, but the mystery of his four wives, missing from the family lore. She ends up excavating much more than she had imagined.
Sharifa’s trip coincides with a time of unrest within her insular and conservative religious community, and there is no escaping its politics. A group of feminists is speaking out against khatna, an age-old ritual they insist is female genital cutting. Sharifa’s two favourite cousins are on opposite sides of the debate and she seeks a middle ground. As the issue heats up, Sharifa discovers an unexpected truth and is forced to take a position.
Farzana Doctor is the author of Stealing Nasreen, All Inclusive, and Six Metres of Pavement, which won a Lambda Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award. She lives in Toronto.
Jury Comment: Already a favourite for her deft skill and lyrical prowess, in her latest novel Farzana Doctor weaves a tale of family, culture, violence, and above all, love. Seven is a story that should be read slowly and carefully for its important issues and POV, but it also demands to be devoured quickly as Doctor’s narrative is so utterly propulsive. Such is her descriptive talent that even the most unique gathering or new location becomes instantly familiar, a place you can settle into, even as it unsettles you right back.
A stirring read on many levels, Seven demands as much as it gifts.
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