The Boat People
A Novel
-
-
4.4 • 7 Ratings
-
-
- $4.99
Publisher Description
Globe and Mail bestseller, The Boat People is an extraordinary novel about a group of refugees who survive a perilous ocean voyage only to face the threat of deportation amid accusations of terrorism
When a rusty cargo ship carrying Mahindan and five hundred fellow refugees from Sri Lanka's bloody civil war reaches Vancouver's shores, the young father thinks he and his six-year-old son can finally start a new life. Instead, the group is thrown into a detention processing center, with government officials and news headlines speculating that among the "boat people" are members of a separatist militant organization responsible for countless suicide attacks—and that these terrorists now pose a threat to Canada's national security. As the refugees become subject to heavy interrogation, Mahindan begins to fear that a desperate act taken in Sri Lanka to fund their escape may now jeopardize his and his son's chance for asylum.
Told through the alternating perspectives of Mahindan; his lawyer, Priya, a second-generation Sri Lankan Canadian who reluctantly represents the refugees; and Grace, a third-generation Japanese Canadian adjudicator who must decide Mahindan's fate as evidence mounts against him, The Boat People is a spellbinding and timely novel that provokes a deeply compassionate lens through which to view the current refugee crisis.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A reckoning between Canada's historic ideals and its contemporary politics is forced in this timely and engrossing debut novel based on the arrival of 500 refugees from war-torn Sri Lanka in 2010. After a voyage aboard a ship "groaning under the weight of too much human cargo," Mahindan and his son land with their fellow fleeing Tamils near Vancouver, woefully unprepared for the trials that still await them. Grace has been appointed to arbitrate their fitness to enter the country by a politician who instructs her, "Canada has a reputation for being a soft touch.... We must disabuse the world of that notion." The government's attempt to cast the refugees as terrorists leads to protracted admissibility hearings, forcing Mahindan's son into foster care and dimming his dreams of freedom. Skillfully braiding Grace's and Mahindan's perspectives, Bala manages wrings drama from the endless bureaucratic delays that make up the story. Hope only arrives once Grace's mother begins sharing stories of their Japanese-Canadian family's internment during World War II, leading Grace to reassess the ruthless approach expected of her; conversely, Bala's gradual reveal of the nastiness Mahindan engaged in to escape Sri Lanka complicates his otherwise sympathetic portrayal. This is a powerful debut.
