A boy’s lament at the cruelty we call human beings

“My dear Marwan, I look at your profile,

By the light of this three-quarter moon, my father,

Your eyes are like calligraphy,

Shut up with delusional sleep.

I said to you, ‘Hold my hand.

Nothing bad will happen’.”

Here are a few sentences from the background of Prayer of the sea, the fourth letter b Khaled Hosseini. Hosseini is a well-known author of three books, including an international bestseller The Step Car, and he is a Goodwill Ambassador at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Prayer of the Sea a 40-page book, or more, of free verse beautifully illustrated with photos by Dan Williams. It can best be described as a small prayer to the sea by a helpless father on the shore of the moon, who will cross the Mediterranean with his child as soon as the morning rises but in below ideal conditions.

The story began by remembering the happy days the father spent in Homs, Syria, when the city was quiet, due to the busyness and congestion of the roads and streets. The time he was awakened by the swinging of olive trees and the clinking of pots, and this city of western Syria was not destroyed by bombs, starvation and death. The father wishes for his son to remember some of the fondest memories of Homs.

The story was inspired by a three-year-old Syrian boy Aylan Kurdihis body washed up on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in 2015 while he was escaping from the sea. Syrian war. While talking to a interviewHosseini was moved to tears even though he remembered seeing Kurdi’s picture.

“I was disappointed,” he said. “I was trying to imagine, as a father, what it would be like to see viral pictures of your three-year-old dead son lying on the sand at the edge of the water and into the hands of a stranger.”

He too mentioned,

“I hope this is the book Prayer of the Sea a little respect not only to his family (Kurdi), but also, on a general level, I hope to highlight the unimaginable sadness that thousands of other ordinary people face every day leave home and community and take a chance on this violence and often travel to the ocean.”

So Hosseini honors the Kurdi family through him Prayer of the sea, while showing the plight and plight of millions of refugees around the world with the help of Williams’ photographs.

The beautiful memories of Homs are like a dream now, not only for the son but also for the father. The protests that followed were accompanied by an atmosphere of fear and chaos, a black sky filled with bombs and bullets instead of rain, and the sight of dead bodies buried under the ruins of buildings. remains in their memory of Homs.

Inside Prayer of the SeaHosseini not only pointed out how the war was carried out by the powerful forces above Syria it has ruined the childhood lives of millions of innocent children, but it also highlights the urgent and growing refugee crisis. They are forced to leave their homes and approach traffickers to find safe havens that are actually not safe.

A heartfelt letter from a father to his son makes us think of the thousands of refugees who risk their lives at the door of death every year just to find shelter, but most of them just perished in the sea without leaving anything behind. Every night they sleep in the remains of human flesh burned by explosive bombs, and their own bodies stained with blood, dreaming of a better future – a hope for a safe haven, a desire for a home . Carrying their misfortunes, they yearn for acceptance and search for a place to accept them.

But no one cares. Even the sea.

The sea is deep. It’s broad. The sun is waiting impatiently on the cool beach. The father sees his son, his one important cargo, and tries to comfort his sleeper with his words, while praying that the sea will know his value. It kills him every time he thinks of the depth and breadth of the sea and his own helplessness. At this moment, the mother’s voice came:

“Oh, if only they could see, my dear.”

Even half of what you have.

If only they could see.

They will surely say kind words.”

The book will slowly bring tears to your eyes as the deep ocean drowns the bodies of thousands of refugees who have fled war and violence. Some pages have no words, and here the pictures speak more powerfully than words can. Silently, they make your heart weep silently for the contempt of what we call human beings. People, the greatest creation that has been created, cannot feel the pain of their fellow human beings.

Every word, every picture in this book will leave a deep mark on your heart. The vision of the change of a calm, crowded and noisy Homs in the city of death; no one could have written this better than Hosseini. No word can carve such a feeling into a heart other than his own. This book should have been written innocently, with a heart that could feel the pain and feelings of thousands of people no family Syrians, Afghans, Somalis and Iraqis. So who better than Hosseini to write? After all, no one feels the pain of a refugee more than a refugee himself. As he stated,

“If I were a boy on the shore of the moon going on one of these trips, you can bet I’d be… also saying one of these prayers.”

Prayer of the Sea about asking yourself: what would you do if you had to leave your home and cross a deep sea on a cold night? How would you react if your loved ones died in the same sea?

Imagine them dead. Imagine their fate as a feast for the sea. Imagine the struggle of their last breaths before they were taken away forever. Imagine that the sea washed them to the beach itself. How do you feel? Imagine how a father feels when he sees his three-year-old son like this?

Hosseini has left serious questions for the world’s powers to ponder in his short work of fiction!