Mawenzi House Publishers Ltd.

01/24/2025

Nazneen Sheikh will be at the Wychwood Public Library in Toronto on January 28 from 2 - 3 pm. We hope to see you there!

01/23/2025

A fantastic review of Unwashed from The Fiddlehead.

Issue 302 (the first issue of our 80th year) is officially in the mail!

Included in issue 302 is Kirby's review of Daniel Maluka's debut poetry collection Unwashed from Mawenzi House. Kirby called Maluka's debut "mighty. Profoundly good. Some of the best work I’ve read this decade"

Read the full review here:
https://thefiddlehead.ca/content/kirby-reviews-unwashed-daniel-maluka

01/17/2025

Sarmad Sehbai will be having a book launch on January 19th, 2025 at the Living Arts Centre (Screening Room) in Mississauga at 3 PM. Books will be available for sale, and light refreshments will be available.

Space is limited so please arrive early.

01/15/2025

"...it seems to me that we must, perhaps more than ever, remind ourselves of the power of words to either do constructive things or to create chaos, suffering, hatred, misunderstand. We must be reminded constantly that language is to be paid attention to."

For today's , Portuguese-Canadian novelist, poet, and professor Irene Marques ruminates on language and shares four poems from her latest collection, THE BARE BONES OF OUR ALPHABET (Mawenzi House Publishers Ltd.).

https://alllitup.ca/poetry-in-motion-irene-marques-the-bare-bones-of-our-alphabet/

01/13/2025

Save these dates for Mawenzi events in January!

Our first event is a book launch for Sarmad Sehbai's novel, The Blessed Curse, in Mississauga on January 19.
Nazneen Sheikh will be participating in the conversation with Generation Women on January 23.
Nazneen Sheikh will be at the Wychwood Public Library on January 28.
Koom Kankesan will be signing copies of Killing Shakespeare at the OLA Super Conference on January 30, and we will also be attending this conference as exhibitors on January 30 and 31.

Stop by and say hi to us at any of these events. We're always happy to chat with you.

01/09/2025

Our holiday sale ends TOMORROW!

Save 30% on our print titles, excluding pre-orders, and 10% on all ebooks.

There is no tax on printed books until February 15!

Shop our sale now: https://bit.ly/2VTsyyo

12/23/2024

Wishing you a happy holidays! We will be reading books, drinking coffee/tea and eating a lot of good food. We’ll see you back here in January!

12/20/2024

We’ve got your next short story collection to read before the holidays!

JEWELS AND OTHER STORIES by DAWN PROMISLOW is her debut collection that is populated by a wide and surprising range of unforgettable characters: an artist who finds his power in the dusty earth; a mother who waits for a letter; a collector of cacti who seeks her own kind of freedom; a shopkeeper in trouble in an outpost country town.

Our print and ebooks are on sale via our website until January 10. Until February 15, our print titles have the HST taken off: https://bit.ly/2VTsyyo

12/14/2024

Cotton Blues was the last book we published this year. We paired Cotton Blues with some of our translated titles, since we published three French to English translations this year, and completed the Prison of Dreams Quintet.

Translated titles we recommend:

📖Manam by Rima Elkouri, translated by Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott
📖Mina Among the Shadows by Edem Awumey, translated by Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott.
📖Blueberries and Apricots by Natasha Kanapé Fontaine, translated by Howard Scott
📖Toronto, I Love You by Didier Leclair, translated by Elaine Kennedy
📖Salt in My Life by Lien Chao

All the books mentioned are on sale via our website: https://bit.ly/2VTsyyo

12/13/2024

Farida by Monia Mazigh was the second French-to-English translation we published this year.
Farida is a beautiful, evocative novel of modern Tunisia told through the lives of its women.

We recommend books on female empowerment and included Mazigh's non-fiction title, which we published in June 2023!

Books we recommend:
📖The Red One by Safia Fazlul
📖Her Mother's Ashes 3, edited by Nurjehan Aziz
📖Electric Fences and Other Stories by Gugu Hlongwane
📖The Muslimah Who Fell to Earth: Personal Stories by Canadian Muslim Women edited by Saima S Hussain
📖Gendered Islamophobia: My Journey with a Scar(f) by Monia Mazigh

All the books mentioned are on sale via our website: https://bit.ly/2VTsyyo.

12/12/2024

I Left You Behind by Nazneen Sheikh is the second short story collection we published this year.

These are stories of dislocation, relocation, and longing, evoking the physical and mental isolation made so tangible during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Books about displacement/between places we recommend:
📖Her Mother's Ashes 3 edited by Nurjehan Aziz
📖Echoes from the Other Land by Ava Homa
📖Looking Back, Moving Forward edited by Julie C Robinson
📖Adrift by Loren Edizel
📖Flesh, Tongue by Yaya Yao

All the books mentioned are on sale via our website: https://bit.ly/2VTsyyo.

Check back tomorrow for more recommendations.

12/11/2024

The Bare Bones of Our Alphabet will make you think and exercise those poetry-reading muscles. We paired this book with other books focusing on language.

Books we recommend:
📖The Perfect Unravelling of the Spirit by Irene Marques
📖Caribbean Blues & Love’s Genealogy by Dannabang Kuwabong
📖Nuff Said by Michelle Muir
📖Bodymap by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

All the books mentioned are on sale via our website: https://bit.ly/2VTsyyo.

Check back tomorrow for more recommendations.

12/10/2024

Following Shimun was our first (and only) memoir we published this year, and was also our first translated title.
Following Shimun paints a stirring picture of the Innu people, for whom the call of the land exerts a magnetic pull and the spirit of hospitality still dictates how they treat unexpected guests.

Books we recommend:
📖: My Work With Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in Canada by Chandrakant P Shah
📖SH:LAM (The Doctor) by Joseph A Dandurand
📖Do Not Enter My Soul in Your Shoes by Natasha Kanapé Fontaine
📖Message Sticks (Tshissinuatsh*takana) Joséphine Bacon

All the books mentioned are on sale via our website: https://bit.ly/2VTsyyo

Check back tomorrow for more recommendations.

12/09/2024

A little bit out of the norm from what we publish, The Blessed Curse by Sarmad Sehbai is a savage satire, blending the real and unreal. The novel’s style carries the tradition of Punjabi humour, which is often dark, irreverent, and brutally frank.

Novels we recommend:
📖An Island Is a World by Sam Selvon
📖Isolated Incident by Mariam Pirbhai
📖Keepers of the Faith by Shaukat Ajmeri
📖Nehanda by Yvonne Vera
📖The Thin Line by Perparim Kapllani

All the books mentioned are on sale via our website: https://bit.ly/2VTsyyo

Check back tomorrow for more recommendations.

12/08/2024

We published the final book in the Prison of Dreams Quintet this year! With this gripping tale coming to a close, we've got some book recommendations for gripping tales.

Books we recommend:
📖The Writing Circle by Rozena Maart
📖Fire Walkers by Bethlehem Terrefe Gebreyohannes
📖 Such a Lonely, Lovely Road by Kagiso Lesego Molope
📖Miah by Julia Lin

All the books mentioned are on sale via our website: https://bit.ly/2VTsyyo

Check back tomorrow for more recommendations.

12/07/2024

The Prison of Dreams quintet was completed this year! We published the fourth book which was translated into English. This quintet develops the context of Sri Lanka’s tragic civil war, we wanted to highlight other Tamil-authored books.

Tamil-authored books we recommend:
📖The Strike by Anand Mahadevan
📖You Cannot Turn Away by R Cheran
📖World Without Walls: Being Human, Being Tamiledited by R Cheran, Dalbir Singh, Chelva Kanaganayakam, Sudharshan Durayappah
📖Then There Were No Witnesses by Ahilan

All the books mentioned are on sale via our website: https://bit.ly/2VTsyyo

Tomorrow we conclude the Prison of Dreams quintet.

12/06/2024

The second poetry title we published is Daniel Maluka's debut collection, Unwashed. Since Daniel lives in Toronto, we thought we would pair his fabulous collection with some of our local Toronto authors/poets!

Daniel is also a visual artist and helped us create his book cover!

Toronto/local authors we recommend:
📖Reimagining Chinatown: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction edited by Linza Zhang
📖Bittersweet by Natasha Natasha Ramoutar
📖Toronto, I Love You by Didier Leclair, translated from French by Elaine Kennedy
📖Rouge by Adrian De Leon
📖The Youth of God by Hassan Ghedi Santur

All the books mentioned are on sale via our website!

Check back tomorrow for more recommendations.

12/05/2024

We published a debut poetry collection from Linzey Corridon that we rave about even months
later. We've paired Linzey's book with some of our other Caribbean poets (Linzey was born and raised in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and now resides in Canada).

Caribbean Poets we recommend:
📖Sargasso Sea Scrolls by Dannabang Kuwabong
📖de Book of Joseph by Pamela Mordecai
📖The Voyage by H Nigel Thomas
📖Mattress Makers by Sasenarine Persaud
📖Redemption Rain by Jennifer Rahim

All the books mentioned are on sale via our website!

If you like poetry and local authors you're going to like tomorrow's recommendations!