ALU Summer Book Club: Intro to Where the Jasmine Blooms

Book club with us and get 15% off Where the Jasmine Blooms until August 31 with the discount code INTHECLUB2025

Zeina Sleiman’s Where the Jasmine Blooms is a rich, beautifully observed debut novel about the ties that stretch across borders and generations. In this political historical thriller and Muslim feminist love story, Sleiman paints a vivid portrait of displacement and endurance, where the scent of jasmine, or a tradition can bridge the distance between past and present. When its central character Yasmine goes to Lebanon seeking the family, culture, and connection that her Palestinian mother hid during their life in Toronto, she finds herself embarking on a mission, along with her cousin Reem, to uncover a long-held family secret. Where the Jasmine Blooms is a heartfelt exploration of identity, resilience, and the enduring presence of the past.

Buy your own copy here on All Lit Up for 15% off (or find a copy from your local indie using our Shop Local finder).

Read on for our interview with the publisher, Fernwood Publishing.

All Lit Up: How did Where the Jasmine Blooms first come to Fernwood? What attracted you to the book, and what made you decide to publish?

Fernwood Publishing: At the end of 2022, Roseway’s development editor, Fazeela Jiwa, participated in a special event for racialized people planned by The Writers’ Union of Canada called BIPOC Writers Connect. There, she noticed Zeina’s commentary on some of the topics the group discussed, so she reached out to see if Zeina’s project would be a good fit for Roseway — and it was! We decided to publish this book because the struggle for Palestinian sovereignty has been a major political issue for over 75 years, and as a publisher of books that challenge the status quo we have been actively publishing on this topic for many years. Readers need fiction that either affirms their experiences or that helps them understand what they don’t know, and Zeina’s political thriller / love story centres feminist Muslim romance and a variety of Arab and Palestinian diasporic experiences that we haven’t seen reflected elsewhere.

ALU: The book is set in 2006, but the echoes to today’s plight of Palestinian people are certainly felt. How was editing a book that is “of a time” but also, we can clearly see and trace the modern-day ramifications of things that happened in the past?

FP: During the editing process, Israel displaced, killed, and disappeared huge numbers of Palestinians and also attacked Lebanon, where this book is set. It was horrifying to see how the events described in this historical fiction were uncannily repeated, but it is also the reason why we need to publish books like this one that describe the contemporary outcomes of unresolved and ongoing conflicts. One of the ramifications of history that this book explores is the specific experience of Palestinian refugees and the next generation of diasporic Palestinians who are disconnected from their land because their parents fled coercion, danger, or violence. Zeina juxtaposes two cousins, one living in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon and one who is an academic in Canada. They both envy each other for the access they have, one to cultural proximity/relations/land and the other to mobility/safety/opportunity. As a diasporic person herself, Fazeela felt that the emotional and material complexity of the cousins’ experiences shows how history has embodied, contemporary impacts — the children carry those losses with them, no matter where they go.

ALU: With the switching perspectives between the cousins Yasmine and Reem in the book, what are the editing challenges of a multi-POV storyline like this?

FP: We love this technical question! Let’s nerd out: the multi-POV storyline was an exciting structural challenge because at first, Yasmine was the main voice of the story. She still is, but Reem became more of a central character. We tried to go for a reliably alternating chapter pattern, which meant moving some plot points around — that’s because readers of historical fiction novels innately pick up on the reading pattern as part of the world building they are most open to in the beginning of the book. Near the end (which reads like an action movie!) it made sense to have a few more chapters from Yasmine’s perspective because readers needed more information about the mystery of her father (and the love triangle was getting so juicy). But even more importantly, there are more chapters from Yasmine’s perspective near the end of the book because we wanted to respect Reem’s grieving process. The reader doesn’t need to hear from her until she’s ready. 

ALU: This cover is evocative of the place of Lebanon through the pomegranate and jasmine, as well as the cousins, through the hands. How did you arrive at this cover?

FP: Fernwood collaborates with our authors throughout the publishing process, and the cover is part of that collaboration too. Zeina suggested that the cover might refer to a scene in the book where the two cousins sit in a gorgeous courtyard and share a pomegranate, and our designer went with it. The jasmine flower plays an important role in this book in that it refers to Yasmine’s name but also the sensuous beauty of Lebanon, so it frames the interaction. The pomegranate passing between the hands evokes how the two cousins nourish each other, but there is also a sense of separation and the very real possibility of missing what is being given — missing the connection. They met on social media; theirs is a tenuous relation because they are children of refugees who cannot return to their land, and the world could pull them apart again just as easily. 

ALU: As a non-Arabic speaker, I appreciated the translation glossary at the back of the book, and felt like I learned a lot! What are special challenges to working on an English-language novel that incorporates a lot of non-English text?

FP: The treatment of translated words in an English-language book is a politicized choice. We discussed this choice with Zeina at length because it involves making decisions around primary audience. Do we italicize non-English words to emphasize that they are not English, or does that increase their sense of “foreignness” for no reason — surely an English-language reader will know when the word is not in English even when it’s not italicized? Does italicizing non-English words, or even translating them within the text directly in parentheses or through context, make assumptions about the language of the reader? Wouldn’t it be nice for a reader of Arabic and English, like the characters in this book, to be able to just read the story without being interrupted by translations and italics? In the end, we gave this audience preference and opted for a glossary of non-English words at the back of the book for readers who were interested in the meaning of the Arabic words. 

ALU: What can readers especially look forward to in Where the Jasmine Blooms? What is your favourite thing about it?

FP: One of our favourite facts about this book is that all of the text was developed by diverse Muslim creatives, including the writing, structural and stylistic editing, copy editing, and glossary development. This was an intentional practice: it matters that the people who work in publishing stories can understand them in their own context. It also allows for diverse Muslim and Arab experiences to be explored without centring on just trauma or violence or displacement — these are central themes in Where the Jasmine Blooms, but it’s also a romance that features normal Muslim characters doing Muslim things in an Arabic context, which sounds like maybe not much but it is still so needed to decentre Christian and Western literary defaults. In doing so, the story takes on stereotypes about women and Islam with Yasmine’s ultimately successful struggle to honour her own desires, time, and choices while manoeuvring patriarchy. This is a feminist Muslim novel about abusive relationships, diaspora, and war. The world is ready for this book.

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Thanks to the Fernwood team for answering our questions! Get Where the Jasmine Blooms here on All Lit Up for 15% off (discount code INTHECLUB2025), all summer long.

Keep on top of all summer book club happenings here.