When Nadia Eid leaves Montreal in search of her Palestinian father who has been missing in Cairo, she is far from imagining that she her true discovery will be a complex relationship with Manal, a young Egyptian artist. But what to do when nationality and personal relations refuse to coexist? With Manal's career poised to take off and her father's secret life revealed, the intifada rages across the border and Nadia must choose between family and destiny.

Montrealer Leila Marshy is of Palestinian-Newfoundland heritage--she can tell a good joke, but it bombs. She has been a filmmaker, a baker, an app designer, a marketer, a farmer, and editor of online culture journal Rover Arts. She founded the Friends of Hutchison Street, a groundbreaking community group bringing Hasidic and non-Hasidic neighbours together in dialogue. She has published stories and poetry in Canadian and American journals and anthologies. The Philistine is her first novel.

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"Leila Marshy illuminates love and identity in the streets of Cairo in a way that makes you feel you've watched her scenes through a high-definition kaleidoscope.? — Kathleen Winter Annabel, Lost in September "This accomplished first novel gives us the vibrant story of Nadia's passionate love affair with an Egyptian woman, which compels Nadia to stay in the city long enough to rediscover her father and herself. The novel delicately hints at the societal tensions that will lead to the 2011 Egyptian Revolution while depicting a rich and surprising Cairo rarely seen." — Leilah Nadir The Orange Trees of Baghdad