Crooked Teeth by Danny Ramadan: Book launch and Party

Tickets are General Admission and do not guarantee seating. Dinner reservations guarantee seating and are available at or 416-588-0307

Check out the Lula dinner menu: lula.ca/menu

6:00pm - Doors open for dinner & drinks

7:00pm - Show

Another Story Bookshop, Viking Canada and MaziQa present the Toronto launch of Crooked Teeth: A Queer Syrian Refugee Memoir

Featuring a reading with Danny Ramadan and conversation with Farzana Doctor

Opening performance by Leila BalaKos

Music by DJ Fawahesh - spinning during dinner and after the reading so bring your dancing shoes!

Books will be for sale and there will be a book signing.

Doors open at 6pm for dinner reservations/ Event begins at 7:00pm

Tickets are general admission and do not guarantee seating.

For guaranteed seating reserve a table to enjoy Lula’s tropical fusion menu before the show: https://www.lula.ca/reservations or call 416-588-0307.

Seating for guests without a reservation is limited to availability.

About the book

“Writing this memoir is a betrayal.” So begins this electrifying personal account from Danny Ramadan, a celebrated novelist who has long enjoyed the shield his fiction provides. Now, to tell the story of his life, he must revisit dark corners of his past he’d rather forget and unearth memories of a city he can no longer return to.
Starting with his family’s humble beginnings in Damascus, he takes readers on an epic, border-crossing journey: to the city’s underground network of queer safe homes; to a clandestine party at a secluded villa in Cairo; through Arab Spring uprisings across the Middle East, a reckless hoax that threatens the safety of Syria’s LGBTQ+ community, and a traumatic six-week imprisonment; to beaches and sunsets with friends in Beirut; to an arrival in Vancouver that’s not as smooth as it promised to be; and ultimately to a life of hard-won comfort and love.
What emerges is a powerful refutation of the oversimplified refugee narrative—a book that holds space for joy alongside sorrow, for nuance and complicated ambivalences. Written with fearless intimacy, Crooked Teeth is a singular achievement in which a master storyteller learns that his greatest story is his own.

About the author

Danny Ramadan is a Syrian-Canadian author, public speaker, and advocate for LGBTQ+ refugees. His debut novel, The Clothesline Swing, was longlisted for Canada Reads and named a Best Book of the Year by The Globe and Mail and Toronto Star. His second novel, The Foghorn Echoes, won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction and was shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the Vancouver Book Award. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC and currently lives in Vancouver with his husband.

About the guests

Farzana Doctor is the Tkaronto-based author of four novels: Stealing Nasreen, Six Metres of Pavement, All Inclusive, and Seven. Her poetry collection, You Still Look The Same, which Quill & Quire has called “a powerful and necessary collection that breaks silences” was released in May 2022. Her new self- and community care workbook for helpers and activists--52 Weeks to a Sweeter Life has just been released. In 2023, Farzana received the prestigious Freedom To Read Award. Learn more at www.Linktr.ee/farzanadoctor

Leila BalaKos hails as a rising fiery phoenix in the Toronto drag scene. Her name comes from the great romantic tragedy of Leila and Kays. An actress, slam poet, flirty pop diva, & conceptual, camp, comedy queen. She is the Middle Eastern Auntie we all need. Her credits include hosting Maziqa Party and performing for El Convento Rico, Ya TabTab Night, Habibi Nights, Hoebibi, Muslim PrideTO, Pride Toronto, & several other parties & venues. She also starred in short plays of her writing such as "Hummus Rouge" & "Rebirth of Leila & Kays" which was part of Soulpepper's Queer Cab

Maya AKA DJ Dr. Fawahesh is the founder of the MaziQa party collective.

Host or Publisher Lula Lounge / Lula Music & Arts Centre