Searing and deeply moving, Akkad’s ambitious novel of the refugee crisis sets two displaced children on a quest for safety in a hostile land, alternating chapters to show how the desperate events of the narrative have come to pass.
From 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.
More bodies have washed up on the shores of a small island. 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. 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 Vanna: 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. And though Vanna and Amir are complete strangers and don't speak a common language, Vanna determines to do whatever it takes to save him.
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. 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. Omar El Akkad's What Strange Paradise is the story of our collective moment in this time: of empathy and indifference, of hope and despair - and of the way each of those things can blind us to reality, or guide us to a better one.
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 9781529069495
Number of pages: 256
Weight: 188 g
Dimensions: 197 x 130 x 16 mm
Deserves to be an instant classic. I haven’t loved a book this much in a long time . . . What Strange Paradise . . . reads as a parable for our times . . . Such beautiful writing . . . This is an extraordinary book. - The New York Times
An extremely accomplished and moving novel, but also a gripping page-turner . . . It reads as a type of shattered fairy tale on several levels: the hopes and dreams of the boat refugees, and the superhuman feats enabling Amir and Vanna to mimic his favourite adventure stories – with an ambiguous ending leaving a devastating question mark over the whole tale. - Independent
Riveting . . . Nothing I’ve read before has given me such a visceral sense of the grisly predicament confronted by millions of people expelled from their homes by conflict and climate change. - Washington Post
This compassionate novel could not be more timely. - Financial Times
So gripping a page-turner that its brutal message feels organic . . . Through wisdom imparted by various characters, the reader receives new perspectives; the privileged Western reader in particular is confronted with him- or herself in an uncomfortable way. - Toronto Globe and Mail
Hope and despair, past and present, possibility and unlikelihood, kindheartedness and cruelty — they all fill the pages of this book with an exploration of all the sides of humanity. - NPR
[What Strange Paradise is] simple in the way that novels like [Camus's] The Stranger or [Steinbeck's] Of Mice and Men are: brief, taut, cooly delivered but with seas of emotion swirling underneath. - Minneapolis Star Tribune/Seattle Times
Impassioned and richly detailed, What Strange Paradise moves like a thriller and punches like a work of art. With this haunting story of refugees, high seas, sharks and Samaritans, Omar El Akkad continues on his impressive exploration of our contemporary world. - Aravind Adiga, author of The White Tiger and Amnesty
Resuscitated my heart. This novel – following a boy who survives a refugee passage, and a girl whose homeland feels fractured – dares to unite us on the shore of shared human experience, and redefines hope in the face of despair. - Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Chronology of Water
It is one thing to put a human face on a migrant crisis and another to do so in so compelling a way that a reader simply cannot put your book down. I read this in one sitting, my heart pounding the whole way – in a strange paradise, you might say. Marvelous. - Gish Jen, author of The Resistors
What an imaginative, touching, and necessary novel Omar El Akkad has brought to us. It reminds us of the human stories behind headlines and statistics, and gives us one of the most memorable children characters, whose story adds urgency and poignancy to that "awfully big adventure" stated by Peter Pan. - Yiyun Li, author of Where Reasons End
Tremendously written . . . Omar El Akkad writes with such emotional precision, power, and grace . . . The book devastates and uplifts, somehow, and we are not left with hope – that isn’t the point – but asked to witness, to see what is here, with clarity, and with fullness of heart. - Tommy Orange, author of There, There
This book is beautifully written that it makes a harrowing subject matter easy to read. I was immediately transported into the world of Amir.
The book looks at the reality, on an individual level, of refugees and...
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What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad is a stunning and searing novel about the refugee crisis. Told through the eyes of two children. Amir, a nine year old boy whose family has fled Syria. Amir follows his Quiet... More
More bodies have washed up on the shores of a small island. Another overfilled, ill-equipped, dilapidated ship has sunk under the weight of its too many passengers: Syrians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, Lebanese,... More
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