Transatlantic is proud to announce that Zarqa Nawaz’s JAMEELA GREEN RUINS EVERYTHING has been longlisted for the 2023 Leacock Medal Award!
The annual Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour is celebrating 76 years since its inception. This annual award recognizes excellence in Canadian literary humour. To learn more about the awards, click here: https://www.leacock.ca/#:~:text=2023%20Long%20List%20announced,excellence%20in%20Canadian%20literary%20humour.
JAMEELA GREEN RUINS EVERYTHING is a hilarious satire about a disillusioned American Muslim woman who becomes embroiled in a plot to infiltrate an international terrorist organization and, in the process, reconnects with her loved ones and her faith, from Zarqa Nawaz, the creator of the hit CBC series Little Mosque on the Prairie.
Jameela Green has only one wish. To see her memoir on The New York Times bestseller list. When her dream doesn’t come true, she seeks spiritual guidance at her local mosque. New imam and recent immigrant Ibrahim Sultan is appalled by Jameela’s shallowness, but agrees to assist her on one condition: that she perform a good deed.
Jameela reluctantly accepts his terms, kicking off a chain of absurd and unfortunate events. The homeless man they try to help gets recruited by a terrorist group, causing federal authorities to become suspicious of Ibrahim, and suddenly the imam mysteriously disappears.
Certain that the CIA have captured Ibrahim for interrogation via torture, Jameela decides to set off on a one-woman operation to rescue him. Her quixotic quest soon finds her entangled in an international plan targeting the egomaniacal leader of the terrorist organization—a scheme that puts Jameela, and countless others, including her hapless husband and clever but disapproving daughter, at risk.
A hilarious black comedy about the price of success, and a biting look at what has gone wrong with American foreign policy in the Middle East, Jameela Green Ruins Everything is a compulsively readable, yet unexpectedly touching story of one woman’s search for meaning and connection.
Zarqa Nawaz is a Canadian film and television producer, public speaker, journalist, and former broadcaster. She is the author of the memoir Laughing All the Way to the Mosque, which was shortlisted for the Leacock Medal for Humour, the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, and two Saskatchewan Book Awards. She also created the hit CBC comedy series Little Mosque on the Prairie, the world’s first sitcom about a Muslim community living in the West, and is the creator and star of the hit TV series Zarqa. Zarqa lives in Regina, Saskatchewan, with her loving but long-suffering family.
Zarqa is represented by Samantha Haywood.
Congratulations Zarqa!