Sea Prayer by Khaled Hosseini and illustrated by Dan Williams
Sea Prayer is just that--a prayer, a memory, a lamentation, and a cry for help. On a moonlit night, a father holds his sleeping son Marwan on the beach. He describes his own childhood in the bustling city of Homs, his grandfather's house, olive trees, and more. When the sun rises, the father and his son, along with countless others, will board a boat bound for the "safety" of Europe and beyond.
"Afghans and Somalis and Iraqis and Eritreans and Syrians.
All of us impatient for sunrise,
all of us in dread of it.
All of us in search of home.
I have heard it said we are the uninvited.
We are the unwelcome.
We should take our misfortune elsewhere.
But I hear your mother's voice,
over the tide,
and she whispers in my ear,
'Oh, but if they saw, my darling.
Even half of what you have.
If they only saw.
They would say kinder things, surely."
Marwan's father can do nothing but pray or the safe passage of this most-precious cargo.
Sea Prayer was inspired by the story of Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian regugee who drowned in teh Mediterranean Sea trying to reach Europe in 2015. The book is dedicated to the thousands of refugees who have perished at sea trying to reach safety. Hosseini will donate author proceeds from this book to UNHCR, the UN Relief Agency, and to The Khaled Hosseini Foundation to help fund relief efforts for refugees around the world.
Dan William's paintings are beautiful and say as much as Hosseini's words.
