Saïd M'Dahoma shares 4 books about the ups and downs of life
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When neuroscientist-turned-pastry chef Saïd M'Dahoma was a kid, he read every book he could find in the library, from The Odyssey to the Goosebumps series.
Now, as an adult, the Calgary-based M'Dahoma still loves to read, especially stories about the struggles of everyday life and hurdles people face.
That's why M'Dahoma is championing Jamie Chai Yun Liew's novel Dandelion on Canada Reads 2025, a novel about migration, motherhood and belonging.
Ahead of the debates, he sat down with CBC Books to discuss the books that made an impact on him.
The Odyssey by Homer
The Odyssey is an epic poem charting Odysseus' 10-year journey back home to Ithaca after the Trojan War. Persevering amid obstacles both divine and natural, Odysseus relies on wit and sheer determination to rise to the occasion.
An avid reader from a young age, M'Dahoma came across The Odyssey as a teenager and quickly became immersed in the mythology and the winding adventure of the hero.
"I just thought that it would be boring," he said. "But I really loved it — the fighting, the gods plotting against each other, the unwavering love of Odysseus for Penelope and vice versa."
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time is a collection of essays about race and American nationhood. The 1963 book at once reckons with the country's racist past while championing resilience, courage and love as the only way forward.
"Despite how difficult it is to be African American in the West, there's still some kind of optimism about it," said M'Dahoma. "It's not all depressing and there's a little bit of hope."
There's a little bit of hope. - Saïd M'Dahoma on The Fire Next Time
While M'Dahoma was fascinated by Balwin's encounters with racism in America, he was particularly interested in Baldwin's experiences as a Black man living in Paris which he details in the book.
"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.'"
M'Dahoma was especially impacted by The Fire Next Time because of where he was when he read it.
"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.'"
A Woman's Story by Annie Ernaux, translated by Tanya Leslie
In A Woman's Story, Nobel Prize-winning French writer Annie Ernaux tries to do justice to her mother's life story, which ended with her dying of Alzheimer's. It explores their mother-daughter bond, at once unbreakable and strained — with so much history between them and, as time goes on, less and less in common.
"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," said M'Dahoma.
"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."
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
Yellowface is the story of young, disgruntled white author June Hayward who, in a fit of jealousy, steals her former classmate Athena Liu's manuscript after Liu's death and attempts to publish it as her own. Set in the contemporary world of publishing, Yellowface prods at questions of cultural appropriation and whose voices are ultimately uplifted in the industry and at what cost.
"I like how it touches on racism in a funny way, weirdly enough," said M'Dahoma. "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."
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