8 books to read if you loved Dandelion by Jamie Chai Yun Liew
Fans of the moving immigrant story will love these other Canadian titles
Pastry chef Saïd M'Dahoma championed Dandelion on Canada Reads 2025.
Dandelion is a novel about family secrets, migration, isolation, motherhood and mental illness. When Lily was a child, her mother, Swee Hua, walked away from the family and was never heard from again. After becoming a new mother herself, Lily becomes obsessed with discovering what happened to Swee Hua.
She recalls growing up in a British Columbia mining town where there were only a handful of Asian families and how Swee Hua longed to return to Brunei. Eventually, a clue leads Lily to southeast Asia to find out the truth about her mother.
Here are eight Canadian books to read if you loved Dandelion.
The Immortal Woman by Su Chang
In the novel The Immortal Woman, Lemei's daughter, Lin, struggles with distancing herself from her Chinese heritage while studying in America. At the same time, she is taken aback by her mother's increasing nationalism toward China — this shift is especially surprising considering her mother had once been a student Red Guard leader who had witnessed the atrocities of the Tiananmen Square protests.
Su Chang is a Chinese Canadian writer born and raised in Shanghai. The Immortal Woman is her debut novel. Her writing has been recognized in numerous contests, including Prairie Fire's Short Fiction Contest, the Master Review's Novel Excerpt Contest and the Canadian Authors Association Toronto National Writing Contest.
Denison Avenue by Christina Wong & Daniel Innes
Set in Toronto's Chinatown and Kensington Market, Denison Avenue is a moving portrait of a city undergoing mass gentrification and a Chinese Canadian elder experiencing the existential challenges of getting old and being Asian in North America. Recently widowed, Wong Cho Sum takes long walks through the city, collecting bottles and cans and meeting people on her journeys in a bid to ease her grief.
Denison Avenue was championed by former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi on Canada Reads 2024. Nenshi is currently the leader of the Alberta NDP.
Christina Wong is a Toronto writer, playwright and multidisciplinary artist who also works in sound installation, audio documentaries and photography.
Daniel Innes is a multidisciplinary artist from Toronto. He works in painting, installation, graphic and textile design, illustration, sign painting and tattooing.
Mãn by Kim Thúy, translated by Sheila Fischman
Mãn is a young woman living in Vietnam. Her mother is a spy, and to protect her and give her a better life, her mother arranges a marriage between Mãn and a man who lives in Montreal and runs a restaurant. There, Mãn discovers her love of cooking, which opens up a whole new world of possibilities — and challenges. Written with stunning poetic prose and filled with powerful imagery, Mãn is an unforgettable book about love, passion and sacrifice.
Kim Thúy is a Montreal-based novelist and short story writer. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, she and her family were among thousands who fled the country on boat after the fall of Saigon. They later settled in Quebec. Thúy's first novel, Ru, won the Governor General's Literary Award for French-language fiction and was a finalist for the Giller Prize in 2002. It also won Canada Reads 2015, when it was championed by Cameron Bailey.
Sheila Fischman is the translator of over 150 novels from French to English. She won the Molson Prize for the Arts. She lives in Montreal.
All Our Ordinary Stories by Teresa Wong
In the graphic memoir All Our Ordinary Stories, Teresa Wong uses spare black-and-white illustrations and thought-provoking prose to unpack how intergenerational trauma and resilience can shape our identities. Starting with her mother's stroke a decade ago, Wong takes a journey through time and place to find the origin of her feelings of disconnection from her parents.
The series of stories carefully examine the cultural, language, historical and personality issues that have been barriers to intimacy in her family.
All Our Ordinary Stories was on on the longlist for Canada Reads 2025.
Wong is the Calgary-based author of the graphic memoir Dear Scarlet, which was on the Canada Reads longlist in 2020 and a finalist for the City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize. Wong's work has appeared in The Believer, The New Yorker, McSweeney's and The Walrus. CBC Books named her a writer to watch in 2019.
Ghost Forest by Pik-Shuen Fung
Ghost Forest explores an unnamed woman's grief after her father dies. She revisits her memories of him, an "astronaut father" who stayed in Hong Kong to work when his family immigrated to Canada, and is left with unresolved questions that only her mother and grandmother can help answer.
Pik-Shuen Fung is a Canadian novelist raised in Vancouver and currently based in New York City. Ghost Forest won the 2022 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize and the Amazon First Novel Award.
Butter Honey Pig Bread by francesca ekwuyasi
Butter Honey Pig Bread is a novel about twin sisters, Kehinde and Taiye, and their mother, Kambirinachi. Kambirinachi believes she is a spirit who was supposed to die as a small child. By staying alive, she is cursing her family — a fear that appears to come true when Kehinde experiences something that tears the family apart and divides the twins for years. But when the three women connect years later, they must confront their past and find forgiveness.
Butter Honey Pig Bread was championed by Roger Mooking on Canada Reads 2021. It was also on the 2020 Giller Prize longlist and was a finalist for the 2020 Governor General's Literary Prize for fiction.
francesca ekwuyasi is a writer, filmmaker and visual artist. Her writing has appeared in the Malahat Review, Guts and Brittle Paper, and she was longlisted for the 2019 Journey Prize. Her most recent book is a collaborative dialogue with Roger Mooking called Curious Sounds. She spits her time between Halifax and Montreal.
Reuniting with Strangers by Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio
When five-year-old Monolith arrives from the Philippines to join his mother in Canada he lashes out, attacking her and destroying his new home in the linked short story collection. The characters in Reuniting with Strangers are all dealing with feelings of displacement and estrangement caused as a result of migrating to Canada seeking opportunity.
Reuniting with Strangers was on the longlist for Canada Reads 2024.
Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio is a Filipina-Canadian author, speaker and school board consultant who builds bridges between educators and Filipino families. She was the runner-up in the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers Award recognizing Asian authors in the Canadian Diaspora. Austria-Bonifacio was on the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize longlist.
The Boat People by Sharon Bala
In The Boat People, a ship carrying 500 Tamil refugees reaches the shores of British Columbia. Mahindan and his six-year-old son have survived a harrowing journey and hope to start a new life in Canada. But Mahindan is immediately taken into detention and left to wait there as politicians, journalists and the public debate the fate of the "boat people."
The Boat People was defended by Mozhdah Jamalzadah on Canada Reads 2018.
Sharon Bala is a writer from Newfoundland. The Boat People is her first book. It was also a finalist for the 2018 Amazon Canada First Novel Award, the 2019 Margaret and John Savage First Book Award and the 2019 Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award.
