Sea Prayer
The Sunday Times and New York Times Bestseller
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
A Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller
A deeply moving, gorgeously illustrated short story for people of all ages from the international bestselling author of The Kite Runner, brought to life by Dan Williams's beautiful illustrations
'The book may be brief, but it is beautiful, poetic – a distillation of his strengths' Sunday Times
On a moonlit beach a father cradles his sleeping son as they wait for dawn to break and a boat to arrive. He speaks to his boy of the long summers of his childhood, recalling his grandfather's house in Syria, the stirring of olive trees in the breeze, the bleating of his grandmother's goat, the clanking of her cooking pots. And he remembers, too, the bustling city of Homs with its crowded lanes, its mosque and grand souk, in the days before the sky spat bombs and they had to flee.
When the sun rises they and those around them will gather their possessions and embark on a perilous sea journey in search of a new home.
Proceeds from the sale of Sea Prayer will go to The Khaled Hosseini Foundation and UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency to help fund life-saving support and build better futures for refugees around the world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hosseini (The Kite Runner) says he was compelled to write about the refugee crisis after seeing the photograph of Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian who drowned off the coast of Turkey in 2015. Yet Hosseini's story, aimed at readers of all ages, does not dwell on nightmarish fates; instead, its emotional power flows from the love of a father for his son. Written as a letter, the father begins slowly, recalling for his son, Marwan, the beauty of the Syrian town of Homs as it once was ("We woke in the mornings/ to the stirring of olive trees in the breeze"), then describing the war that destroyed it ("First came the protests./ Then the siege"). Now Marwan and his family sit on a beach, waiting for a boat. The father reassures Marwan: "Hold my hand./ Nothing bad will happen." Inside, though, he is in turmoil: "These are only words... all I can think tonight is/ how deep the sea,/ and how vast, how indifferent." In Williams's loosely stroked ink-and-wash spreads, the corals and greens of the Syrian countryside give way to war's gray shadows and the sea's blue hues. Expansive views of sky and water both temper the text's emotional build and render the figures in them small and fragile. Together, the evocative illustrations and graceful, compelling prose make it clear that Marwan and his parents have no choice but to trust the sea. Ages 7 up.
