The Arabic Word for Mercy
Leena’s starting over in Dubai. After leaving a bad marriage, she’s finally self-sufficient the way her mama, a Palestinian refugee, would have wanted. But one day, her ex appears. He’s about to be wrongfully charged with terrorism in Toronto, and she’s the only one who can prove his innocence.
While Leena weighs her options, she runs into Zayn, a former sweetheart. When she agrees to translate his newest book into Arabic, old feelings start to rekindle. But Zayn has a secret: he’s an informant for state intelligence. Zayn believes in the law, but something feels wrong about spying on his friends. How far will he go to keep his community safe — to prove he belongs?
Blending tender, second-chance romance with a taut, post-9/11 thriller plot, Sleiman’s complex characters explore the myriad ways in which Muslims navigate the world and their choices within it.
Zeina Sleiman is a writer and scholar based out of amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton). Where the Jasmine Blooms, Zeina’s first novel, is a finalist for the Forest of Reading Evergreen Award. Her story “My Father’s Soil” was a finalist for the CBC Short Story Prize, and in 2025 she was named among 22 Canadian writers to watch by CBC Books. Her writing has been supported by grants from the Silk Road Institute, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the Edmonton Arts Council.
Zeina has a PhD in political science and leads a small research and consulting institute at a college in Alberta. Her research specializes in newcomer and citizenship-related issues as well as the impact of municipal politics on settlement and social outcomes for immigrants. She’s the author of an academic book, Sanctuary Regions and the Struggle for Belonging, which documents how stateless and undocumented people make claims for human rights.
When she’s not working or writing, she likes to spend time with her family, experiment with new crochet patterns, or explore new worlds and people as she journeys through her never-ending list of books.
- ISBN-13
- 9781773638959
- Publisher
- Fernwood Publishing
- Imprint
- Roseway Publishing
- Format
- Paperback
- Pages
- 224
- Dimensions
- 216 x 140 mm
- Language
- English