![]() ![]() But as the novel unfurls, we begin to understand that this is not merely the story of two children finding their way through a hostile world. In alternating chapters, we learn the story of Amir's life and of how he came to be on the boat and we follow the duo as they make their way towards a vision of safety. And though Vänna and Amir are complete strangers and don't speak a common language, Vänna determines to do whatever it takes to save him. And only one had made the passage: nine-year-old Amir, a Syrian boy who has the good fortune to fall into the hands not of the officials, but of Vänna: a teenage girl, native to the island, who lives inside her own sense of homelessness in a place and among people she has come to disdain. Another over-filled, ill-equipped, dilapidated ship has sunk under the weight of its too-many passengers: Syrians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Palestinians, all of them desperate to escape untenable lives in their homelands. More bodies have washed up on the shores of a small island. ![]() ![]() WINNER OF THE SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE 2021įrom the widely acclaimed author of American War, Omar El Akkad, a beautifully written, unrelentingly dramatic and profoundly moving novel that brings the global refugee crisis down to the level of a child's eyes. ![]()
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