Kamal: Ryerson University S School Of Journalism

Aden, Yemen Dept: The youngest of 11 children, Kamal had just quietly embraced his gay identity in Egypt when financial problems forced his family to return to a country where homosexuality is punished by public lashings. He stayed only as long as necessary before fleeing to the U.K. to study, earning his PhD in English. Eventually, he came to Toronto with almost nothing but the heavy baggage of leaving his family behind, according to The Star. Running throughout is the story of his siblings, once secular and liberal, now devout and conservative. The sisters he helped shop for bikinis and earned the most money in the family now never leave the house without being fully cloaked and are rarely in mixed company and kamal al-Solaylee was born in Aden, Yemen, grew up in Beirut and Cairo and then moved back to Yemen s capital Sanaa at 22, knowing he couldn t stay long. Al-Solaylee, 47, is now the undergraduate program director at Ryerson University s School of Journalism. He writes about his experience in Intolerable: A Memoir of Extremes HarperCollins, $27.99 . His book not only charts his own transformation, but how Yemen has changed, how the region is evolving and why he believes the promise of the Arab Spring was oversold by Western media. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.