Seven

FINALIST FOR THE 2021 TRILLIUM AWARD · FINALIST FOR THE 2021 EVERGREEN AWARD · AN INDIGO BEST BOOK OF 2020 · A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST INDEPENDENT READ FOR FALL 2020 · AN APPLE BOOKS BEST BOOK OF 2020 · A CBC BOOKS BEST CANADIAN FICTION BOOK OF 2020 · A NOW MAGAZINE TOP TEN BOOK OF 2020

"Be prepared for this novel to stay with you for a long time, especially its ending."-GLOBE AND MAIL
"[An] extraordinary book... packed with discovery and jarring emotional arcs."-TORONTO STAR
"Penetrating and subtle ... [An] immersive, absorbing portrait."-EDEN ROBINSON
"Explores with courage and storytelling finesse the harsh truths within the ideals of kinship and community." -DAVID CHARIANDY
"An urgent and passionate read." -VIVEK SHRAYA
"Visceral and emotional... a courageous feat."-QUILL & QUIRE (starred review)

A brave, soulfully written feminist novel about inheritance and resistance that tests the balance between kinship and the fight against customs that harm us.

When Sharifa accompanies her husband on a marriage-saving trip to India in 2016, she thinks that she's going to research her great-great-grandfather, a wealthy business leader and philanthropist. What captures her imagination is not his rags-to-riches story, but the mystery of his four wives, missing from the family lore. She ends up excavating much more than she had imagined.

Sharifa's trip coincides with a time of unrest within her insular and conservative religious community, and there is no escaping its politics. A group of feminists is speaking out against khatna, an age-old ritual they insist is female genital cutting. Sharifa's two favourite cousins are on opposite sides of the debate and she seeks a middle ground. As the issue heats up, Sharifa discovers an unexpected truth and is forced to take a position.

Farzana Doctor is the author of Stealing Nasreen, All Inclusive, and Six Metres of Pavement, which won a Lambda Literary Award and was short-listed for the Toronto Book Award. She lives in Toronto.

ISBN: 9781459746398
Format: Paperback
Pages: 416
Publisher: Dundurn Press
Published: September 05, 2020

Be prepared for this novel to stay with you for a long time, especially its ending.[An] extraordinary book... packed with discovery and jarring emotional arcs.Farzana Doctor is a writer of extraordinary wit, generosity, and ethical commitment; and Seven explores with courage and storytelling finesse the harsh truths within the ideals of kinship and community.Penetrating and subtle, Seven deftly explores loyalty in changing times, what it means and what you give up to be a part of a community, a marriage, and friendships. Sharifa is a sympathetic everywoman; her relationships fully realized and deeply felt in this immersive, absorbing portrait.In her grand tradition, Farzana Doctor once again pushes us forward with nuanced, layered, inter-generational prose, to bring visibility to an important social issue. An urgent and passionate read.A defiant and engrossing novel.Seven is an intimate, gutsy feminist novel that exposes the lasting, individual impacts of making women's bodies fodder for displays of religious obeisance.Doctor's writing is clean and readable, and by the novel's end, she has layered all the elements together in a meaningful way. Her novel's willingness to engage readers with this challenging, important subject matter is invaluable.Visceral and emotional... a courageous feat.Doctor weaves sensitivity and hope into a gripping narrative. [Seven is] a soulfully-written book about a vexed cultural issue.Seven is fully feminist and ambitiously bold; this is an important book for our changing times.A brave and beautiful book.Family secrets, loyalty, and betrayal lie at the heart of Seven. Delving into history can unearth deeper mysteries than one bargained for.Doctor is not afraid to address injustice cloaked as religion in a world filled with the roar of #MeToo.The different threads of this novel are woven powerfully and culminate in a terrifically moving story.In generously inviting prose, Doctor deftly tackles intergenerational trauma through a distinctly feminist lens.Seven presents a messy situation and Doctor skillfully curates the disarray into a rewarding and consistently engaging read.The feminist novel of the year.A piece of art... this is an exquisite collector's piece. Add it to your own.This is a remarkable work that will cause you to think and really push yourself to understand and examine. Doctor creates a vibrant world full of the conundrums of belonging in the community; the insidiousness of belief and its silent power, the meaning of being female, surrounded by centuries of a culture and religion.Seven feels more like a close friend sharing than an author telling a tale. Many authors aspire for this sort of sublimity, but it is Doctor's effortlessness in creating this intimacy that gives the feeling that she is an author on the verge of transcending the barrier between author and reader.Doctor's writing is skillfully layered, yielding a novel that is complex, gripping, and thought-provoking ... Seven is a singular engrossing, emotional, and empowering story of the strengths of women, family, and truth.Not only is this a story of the demystification of patriarchal taboos and prohibitions, but also a wonderful exploration of women's relationships with other women as mothers, daughters, sisters, and cousins. It is also a persuasive and highly realist spotlight on contemporary India and the women's movements and activism generated there in recent times in response to cataclysmic violence against women.Farzana Doctor's Seven widens the scope, addressing the harms of silence, silencing, and compliance as responses to trauma in the political sphere as well as within the personal, familial, and communal. It does so gradually, coming from a place of learning and caution.Although its subject matter is serious and heavy, the novel keeps the reader engaged until the very end. Given the book's themes of trauma, trust, resistance, gendered violence, and sexual violence, it is likely of interest to readers and scholars of gender studies, trauma studies, and sexuality studies.