Saïd M'Dahoma, a Calgary-based pastry chef and former neuroscientist, will represent the novel *Dandelion* in the Canada Reads 2025 competition. M'Dahoma, who has always been an avid reader, chose *Dandelion* because it resonated with his passion for stories that explore the complexities of everyday life and the challenges people face.
Saïd M'Dahoma, a pastry chef based in Calgary and a former neuroscientist, will represent the novel * Dandelion * in the Canada Reads 2025 competition. The debates are scheduled to take place from March 17 to 20. M'Dahoma, who was an avid reader as a child, still cherishes books that explore the challenges and triumphs of everyday life. His childhood love for Homer's epic poem, *The Odyssey*, ignited a fascination with mythology and heroic journeys.
He found the epic's narrative of Odysseus' 10-year struggle to return home after the Trojan War captivating, despite initially anticipating boredom. 'I just thought that it would be boring,' he recalled. 'But I really loved it — the fighting, the gods plotting against each other, the unwavering love of Odysseus for Penelope and vice versa.' James Baldwin's *The Fire Next Time*, a seminal work exploring his youth in Harlem and the pervasiveness of racial injustice in America, profoundly resonated with M'Dahoma. Published in 1963, this collection of essays confronts the nation's history of racism while championing resilience, courage, and love as the path forward. 'Despite how difficult it is to be African American in the West, there's still some kind of optimism about it,' M'Dahoma shared. 'It's not all depressing and there's a little bit of hope.' Baldwin's experiences as a Black man living in Paris, as documented in the book, particularly captivated M'Dahoma. He noted, 'It changed Baldwin's perspective because he went to Paris and he was like, at least at the time, 'Oh, wow, this is way less racist than in the U.S. So a world where I do not have to endure all of those things is possible.' I read it when I was in Grenada, where everybody's Black. So you go there and the interactions are so different and just like Baldwin, you're like, 'There's another world that is possible where I do not have to think about my Blackness. I can just live and just be.'' M'Dahoma was also drawn to Annie Ernaux's *A Woman's Story*, a poignant exploration of the Nobel Prize-winning French writer's mother's life, culminating in her death from Alzheimer's. The book delves into the complex, interwoven mother-daughter relationship, marked by both unwavering affection and strain, shaped by their shared history and evolving differences. The chef acknowledged, 'There's multiple layers to that book, one of the layers being the relationship between the mother and the daughter and how that relationship evolves over the years. It makes you think about the consequences of moving up the social ladder and how the relationship can evolve and change between people of the same family when they're not in the same social bracket.'Finally, M'Dahoma selected *The Manuscript*, a contemporary novel by debut author, Victoria A. Henry. The story follows June Hayward, a disgruntled white author who, consumed by jealousy, steals her deceased classmate Athena Liu's manuscript and attempts to pass it off as her own. Set against the backdrop of the competitive world of publishing, M'Dahoma appreciated the novel's witty approach to tackling complex issues. He explained, 'I like how it touches on racism in a funny way, weirdly enough. The main character is so insufferable. She's horrible, but her actions are so stereotypically racist that I was laughing at her stupidity and how insufferable she was. It's talking about very big topics, but in a funny way. It's not too heavy. That's why I liked reading it. And there's lots of plot and twists and it keeps going on and on.'
CANADA READS Dandelion Saïd M'dahoma Books Literature Reading Authors Pastry Chef
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