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Book Launch | Basima Takrouri presents Imam: Tale of the Haunted Roads
Join us to celebrate the launch of Imam: Tale of the Haunted Roads, a new novel by Palestinian-Canadian author Basima Takrouri. Basima will be joined in conversation by fellow author Ian Thomas Shaw.
📍 Octopus Books
🕒 Doors open at 6:30pm, program begins at 7pm.
The novel follows the long human story of Palestine—from pre-1948 Jerusalem through war, exile, and return. It focuses less on the big headlines and more on what happens after: how people carry loss, memory, and survival across generations. At the center is Ali Al-Nabulsi, a character shaped by everything around him—colonial pressure, internal tensions, and the quiet, personal struggles that come with all of that. The story focuses on how history lives inside people, not just around them.
Basima Takrouri is a novelist, poet, screenwriter, and cultural producer based in Toronto. She is the author of several acclaimed works, including The Absentee’s Chair (مقعد الغائبة), published when she was only nineteen and recognized as the work of one of the youngest Palestinian female novelists of her generation; A Complicated Passage / Thorny Crossing (عبور شائك), recipient of the Next Page Foundation publishing award; Diaries Under Occupation (يوميات تحت الاحتلال); and the historical novel The Imam: Tale of the Haunted Roads (الإمام: قصة شبح سكن الطريق). Her writings have been translated into English, French, Swedish, and Korean, and published internationally in journals and anthologies, including Qissat: Short Stories by Palestinian Women. She also co-wrote the Emmy Award–winning web drama Chankabout. Takrouri is the founder of Nuwa Arts and Cultural Production, a member of PEN Canada and Writers in Exile, and a PhD candidate in Humanities at York University, where her research explores multilingual artistic production, migration, and cultural memory.
Currently residing in Aylmer, Ian Thomas Shaw has worked as a diplomat and an international development worker, living in Africa, the Middle East and Europe. He is the founder of Deux Voiliers Publishing, the Prose in the Park Literary Festival and the Ottawa Review of Books. His novel Quill of the Dove was published by Guernica Editions in 2019.
This event is free and open to all. Please RSVP to help us know how many guests to expect.