- Pages: 48
- Publisher: Bloomsbury
- Publication Date: 30 August 2018
- My Rating: 4/5 stars
Blurb from Goodreads
A short, powerful, illustrated book written by Khaled Hosseini in response to the current refugee crisis, Sea Prayer is composed in the form of a letter, from a father to his son, on the eve of their journey. Watching over his sleeping son, the father reflects on the dangerous sea-crossing that lies before them. It is also a vivid portrait of their life in Homs, Syria, before the war, and of that city’s swift transformation from a home into a deadly war zone.
Impelled to write this story by the haunting image of young Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy whose body washed upon the beach in Turkey in September 2015, Hosseini hopes to pay tribute to the millions of families, like Kurdi’s, who have been splintered and forced from home by war and persecution, and he will donate author proceeds from this book to the UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency) and The Khaled Hosseini Foundation to help fund lifesaving relief efforts to help refugees around the globe. Hosseini is also a Goodwill Envoy to the UNHCR, and the founder of The Khaled Hosseini Foundation, a nonprofit that provides humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan.
My Thoughts
I absolutely loved Khaled Hosseini’s three novels and I was excitedly waiting for Sea Prayer. However, once this book came out and I read some reviews of people who were disappointed that this was a short illustrated book, I lost interest in reading it.
Would I have loved to have a full-length novel from the author? Yes, of course. Does that mean we should disregard the intention and effort behind this book? Absolutely not. I feel that I can appreciate this book more for its short length. In just a few minutes that took me to finish it, it invoked a lot of emotions and made me think of a lot of things. This book will forever stay with me.
Reading this book now instead of at the time it came out has made me believe even more firmly that sometimes, the right book finds you at the right time.
This book sends the message of being kinder and more empathetic. It has taught me that we need to be more aware of what is happening outside our bubble, right outside our house as well as at a different corner of the world.
