My Thievery of the People - by Leila Marshy (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

From the highways of Cairo to the outports of Newfoundland, the soul-crushing cubicles of city work and the birds and bees of the Quebec countryside, these brilliant short stories lay bare the workings of power and the small acts of both courage and compromise by which those on the margins defy them. Beautifully cohesive across the stunning depth and range of setting and subject, there is nothing predictable about My Thievery of the People.

Review Quotes

"Probably my favourite short story collection of the year, so far, My Thievery of the People: Stories is imbued with qualities both folkloric and darkly magical, as well as violent and adamantly political, featuring heroines aplenty." --Thalia Stoppa, Scout Book Club

"With My Thievery of the People, Marshy establishes herself as a masterful writer of intricate, intergenerational plots. (...) By turns cynical and tender, My Thievery of the People breaks the complacency of the everyday through shock, satire, and the gravitas of subtext." --Shazia Hafiz Ramji, The Literary Review of Canada

"Leila Marshy's collection is full of incisive political commentary on people and how we interact with and hide from each other. The story settings shift from Canada to the Middle East, transcending borders in a way that is familiar to anyone living in a diaspora, with roots and family spread across the world. Marshy immediately establishes herself as a storyteller who can draw a reader in with a few precise words." --Manahil Bandukwala, Quill & Quire

"A provocative examination of life's daily and exhausting humiliations, and the limitless chasms that separate us based on class and wealth disparity, as well as misguided colonial beliefs in the right to ownership of place and power over others. As a fisherwoman in Newfoundland in "Proper Ting" says to a ministry worker from Ottawa, 'No one is innocent here. Everyone smells of either fish or blood. No wonder the fish are leaving, they were never ours to begin with.'" --Anne Perdue, Plenitude

About the Author

Leila Marshy is of Palestinian-Newfoundland parentage and lives in Montreal. During the First Intifada, she worked for the Palestinian Mental Health Association in Gaza, and Medical Aid for Palestine in Montreal. In 2011 she founded Friends of Hutchison, a ground-breaking community group bringing Hasidic and non-Hasidic neighbours together in dialogue. Her first novel, The Philistine, was published in 2018 and in French in 2021.