The Poet's Wife
by Ioanna Sahas Martin

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Eighteen-year-old Yiorgos is desperate to escape the bounds of tradition and his father’s iron fist. As a child, writing poetry and roaming his beloved mountains on the island of Crete provided some reprieve, but now he is slated for mandatory military service. Instead, he stows away on a ship and heads for America. On board, chance encounters with an old sailor and a mysterious young woman set him on a path to Canada that will change his life forever. But Yiorgos’s journey is only part of a larger story. From his great-grandmother fleeing the 1850 Massacre of Aleppo, to his mother surviving war and a troubled marriage, to the woman he secretly loves and the sister seeking independence while trying to reconcile a modern refugee crisis with her own family history—their lives reflect exile and belonging, love and betrayal, faith and sacrifice. Together, they form a multigenerational tale of resilience and discovery spanning over a century, showing the unbreakable ties that connect families across time and oceans.

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"This is such an evocative book. It will make you want to visit Crete! The author takes you there -- you'll feel the warm sun on your face, hear the sea crashing in, and taste the olive oil of Elea. But it's the characters of this novel that will stay with you long after you put the book down. [Yiorgos, the poet, and Aphrodite his muse. As well as Anna, his sister. When Ekaterina landed back in Elea from Aleppo, I wept for her and all they'd been through, and rooted for her to find happiness again. I found myself imagining lives for Anna, Zoe and their family after the book ended.] Step into this story and enjoy being carried away." —Rhonda Douglas, award-winning author of Welcome to the Circus: Stories, and Some Days I Think I Know Things: The Cassandra Poems “Across the seas, across generations, through war and strife, the family in this compelling novel survives, even thrives on a love grounded in their native soil, the poetry of their language and culture, and the steadfast faith of their ancestors.” —Trevor Herriot, award-winning author of Grass, Sky, Song and Towards a Prairie Atonement

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Ioanna Sahas Martin is a diplomat and public servant. Her work draws on a career in international affairs and a deep commitment to peace, inclusion, and gender equality. Her published work spans travel and international development, with poetry in Bywords.ca and Event Poetry and Prose. Ioanna received an honourable mention in the 2022 GritLit short story contest and was shortlisted for the 2022 International Amy MacRae Award for Memoir. Born in Waterloo, Ontario, she is a first-generation Canadian of Greek and Puerto Rican descent.

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Ioanna Sahas Martin