Home of the Floating Lily - by Silmy Abdullah (Paperback)

About the Book

Home of the Floating Lily is a collection of eight short stories that provide a glimpse into the lives of Bangladeshi immigrants, mostly women, in Scarborough and the ways in which they deal with migration, displacement, and the longing for home as they move between countries, cities, and relationships.

Book Synopsis

Home of the Floating Lily is a collection of eight short stories that provide a glimpse into the lives of Bangladeshi immigrants, mostly women, in Scarborough and the ways in which they deal with migration, displacement, and the longing for home as they move between countries, cities, and relationships.

Review Quotes

Home of the Floating Lily by Silmy Abdullah offers an intimate, empathetic and important portrait of the lives of Bangladeshi immigrants in Toronto.

Home of the Floating Lily is an exquisite examination of connection. Gently revealed familial bonds and implicit ties to home are thoroughly tested - and occasionally broken - in ways that both surprise and charm. Capturing the heart of the Crescent Oak Village Bangladeshi community, Silmy Abdullah's lustrous prose spans bougainvillea and biryani, while skillfully embodying the intricacies of marital expectation, and parental obligation. Readers will deeply feel each of these stories, and each of these characters.

Home of the Floating Lily is an intimate examination of love and loss, duty and freedom, of family and friendship. Follow the silken thread running through Silmy Abdullah's illuminating stories. She will remind you of what it truly means to be a daughter, a sister, a son, a brother, a parent, or a friend. Her characters will speak to you of what it is to be young and to be old, of endings and beginnings. Each story is an exploration of our universal longing to be at home in this world and at home in our hearts. I am a better person for having read this wonderful book.

Moving through lives, time, locations, and love, Silmy Abdullah crafts and holds the kind of narrative that welcomes you in and then changes your understanding forever. Home of the Floating Lily is as cutting as it is gentle, as familiar as it is new, and beautiful all the way through. It's the kind of book that gets passed from one reader to the next and held dear at the same time. A remarkable debut from an incredible writer who holds intricate threads of voice and circumstance and weaves gorgeous story with each and every one.

The stories are wonderfully written, and the characters are drawn with sensitive realism. It's a beautiful read.

A real cultural immersion into Bangladeshi-Canadian lives. I really, really enjoyed it.

Abdullah does a deep emotional dive with characters and readers witness the trauma they wrestle with in rebuilding their lives. The stories are an emphatic reminder about the unfinished business of 'home' and all its tensions with identities.

Abdullah uses displacement and migration to reveal experiences that are at once unique to Bangladeshi Canadians but also part of a shared human experience.

Abdullah writes with poignancy and subtlety about her characters' self-discovery as they seek a sense of home amid turbulence and change. This is worth a look.

An impressive accomplishment ... Silmy Abdullah has gifted readers with a discerning look at the complexities of her culture.

In beautifully descriptive prose, Home of the Floating Lily is an evocative debut that explores family, culture, tradition, and love in places that simultaneously promise opportunity and struggle.

Home of the Floating Lily by Silmy Abdullah offers an intimate, empathetic and important portrait of the lives of Bangladeshi immigrants in Toronto.-- "Lawrence Hill, author of The Book of Negroes and The Illegal"

Home of the Floating Lily is an exquisite examination of connection. Gently revealed familial bonds and implicit ties to home are thoroughly tested -- and occasionally broken -- in ways that both surprise and charm. Capturing the heart of the Crescent Oak Village Bangladeshi community, Silmy Abdullah's lustrous prose spans bougainvillea and biryani, while skillfully embodying the intricacies of marital expectation, and parental obligation. Readers will deeply feel each of these stories, and each of these characters.-- "Danuta Gleed Literary Award jury citation"

Home of the Floating Lily is an intimate examination of love and loss, duty and freedom, of family and friendship. Follow the silken thread running through Silmy Abdullah's illuminating stories. She will remind you of what it truly means to be a daughter, a sister, a son, a brother, a parent, or a friend. Her characters will speak to you of what it is to be young and to be old, of endings and beginnings. Each story is an exploration of our universal longing to be at home in this world and at home in our hearts. I am a better person for having read this wonderful book.-- "Christy Ann Conlin, author of Watermark and The Speed of Mercy"

Moving through lives, time, locations, and love, Silmy Abdullah crafts and holds the kind of narrative that welcomes you in and then changes your understanding forever. Home of the Floating Lily is as cutting as it is gentle, as familiar as it is new, and beautiful all the way through. It's the kind of book that gets passed from one reader to the next and held dear at the same time. A remarkable debut from an incredible writer who holds intricate threads of voice and circumstance and weaves gorgeous story with each and every one.

-- "Cherie Dimaline, award-winning author of The Marrow Thieves and Empire of Wild"

The stories are wonderfully written, and the characters are drawn with sensitive realism. It's a beautiful read.

-- "Literary Treats"

A real cultural immersion into Bangladeshi-Canadian lives. I really, really enjoyed it.-- "CBC All in Day"

Abdullah does a deep emotional dive with characters and readers witness the trauma they wrestle with in rebuilding their lives. The stories are an emphatic reminder about the unfinished business of 'home' and all its tensions with identities.-- "Room Magazine"

Abdullah uses displacement and migration to reveal experiences that are at once unique to Bangladeshi Canadians but also part of a shared human experience.-- "The Miramichi Reader"

Abdullah writes with poignancy and subtlety about her characters' self-discovery as they seek a sense of home amid turbulence and change. This is worth a look.-- "Publishers Weekly"

An impressive accomplishment ... Silmy Abdullah has gifted readers with a discerning look at the complexities of her culture.-- "Winnipeg Free Press"

In beautifully descriptive prose, Home of the Floating Lily is an evocative debut that explores family, culture, tradition, and love in places that simultaneously promise opportunity and struggle.-- "Booklist"

About the Author

Silmy Abdullah is a Bangladeshi-Canadian author and lawyer. Her legal practice focuses on the intersection of immigration, poverty, and gender-based violence. Silmy writes both fiction and non-fiction, and Home of the Floating Lily is her debut collection. She lives in Toronto.