Happiness Is Fleeting

This novel paints the portrait of a Lebanese family that has settled in Montreal. The central figure is Dounia, a 75-year-old mother and grandmother. Hers is a story of loss-she first leaves her own village to live in her husband's hometown, and then is wrenched from her homeland, not once but twice, to live in a strange land whose language and customs are foreign to her. _x000D_
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Dounia can neither read nor write, and she speaks only Arabic. Illiterate yet perceptive, nourished by Lebanese proverbs and pearls of wisdom, she has a unique and captivating voice. She struggles, yes, but manages to achieve fulfilment in her new world: "My home is where my grandchildren are, clinging to my neck, calling me Sitto Dounia … in my language. I want to die where my children and my grandchildren live."_x000D_
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Abla Farhoud was an actor and playwright before becoming a novelist in 1998 with the publication of this novel, the French title of which was Le bonheur a la queue glissante, awarded the France-Québec - Philippe Rossillon Prize. Other novels followed, including Le Sourire de la petite Juive (published in English as Hutchison Street), Le dernier des Snoreux, and the posthumous book Havre-Saint-Pierre. Abla Farhoud passed away in 2021.