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.

Leila Marshy's profile page

• Shortlisted for the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, 2019. Shortlisted for the Miramichi Reader "Very Best Book" awards, 2019.