Michèle Marineau's 1992 novel The Road to Chlifa follows Karim Nakad, a seventeen-year-old refugee from the Lebanese civil war, as he faces discrimination in his new life in Montreal, Canada while grappling with the haunting memories of his journey out of war-ravaged Beirut—a journey in which he loses not only his love interest, Nada Tabbara, but Nada's younger sister, Maha. By the end of the novel, Karim is able to overcome the misery of his survivor's guilt by embracing life in Canada, telling himself that he must live to tell Maha and Nada's baby brother Jad about his sisters and parents.
The original French edition La Route de Chlifa won multiple awards, including the 1993 Governor General's Award for Children's Literature, before Susan Ouriou translated the novel into English in 1995. The novel is taught in schools for its balanced depiction of migration, war, racial discrimination, and teenage love and sexuality.
