Nadine Dajani

Who is Nadine Dajani?

Nadine Dajani is a Canadian author. She is the eldest of three children of Bassam Dajani, a mathematics major turned entrepreneur, and Haifa Naffa. She penned short stories throughout elementary and high school but did not pursue any formal journalistic or creative writing training. Fashionably Late, which she started writing at 25, was her first attempt at adult fiction. She has followed that with a second novel Cutting Loose in 2008 and a third is under preparation tentatively titled Cubanista.

Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Dajani moved to Canada with her family in 1987. Dajani undertook studies in Commerce at Concordia University in Montreal, majoring in accounting. Upon receiving her Certified Management Accounting designation in 2002, she relocated to the Cayman Islands to work in the offshore banking industry. Nadine is also a travel writer, whose articles have been published in Atmosphere magazine.

She is best known for writing a popular chick-lit novel entitled Fashionably Late, which was published in 2007 by Tom Doherty LLC, under the Forge imprint. This work focuses on Aline Hallaby, a young Arab woman in Montreal, Canada whose accounting career and sense of identity are threatened when she fails the Uniform Final Examination. The book follows how Aline copes with—and triumphs over—her stressful situation by fleeing to Varadero, Cuba with her two closest friends to figure out how to start her life anew.