Khaled Hosseini’s Sea Prayer Review
Background of the Sea Prayer
The tragic story of Alan Kurdi and the Syrian refugee crisis inspired the novel Sea Prayer. In September 015 three-year-old Syrian boy drowned in the Mediterranean Sea while attempting to reach Europe. After this heartbreaking story, 4,176 people died or went missing while trying to find a safe place.
Sea Prayer Summary
Sea Prayer is a short illustrated novel. The setting is Homs, a Syrian city nearby the Meditararian Sea. A Syrian father with his son Marwan waits impatiently at a coast. With the father, people such as Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians et al. desperately wait for a boat.
The war has snatched Marwan’s mother from Marwan. The future seems uncertain. The father tries to pacify the son by telling him about the good early days of their lives. The memories are fresh like the green field where cows were grazing.
Suddenly, everything has changed. It starts as a protest but later it turns into a siege. The sky begins throwing bombs one after another indifferently. Mothers, sisters, brothers, friends, everyone runs after for life. Some are sleeping silently, some are hiding in between concretes and some are fleeing the place. Marwan’s father is one of them.
He with other refugees waits at the coast. The night is dark and long and their future is uncertain like the night. No one is aware of what lies ahead. They only know that they are in search of a home.
Theme
The novel revolves around the theme of the search for a home. It is a story of the unnamed refugees who are fed up with the wars and escape from the horror of war and persecution. All they want is a home where others treat them friendly.
Sea Prayer Quotes
This quote above summarizes the tragedy of the refugee crisis. The refugees encounter the fear of not accepting a new land.
Another moving quote from the novel is,
This shows the helplessness of a father who can’t do anything to save his child from the hidden threats ahead. All he can do is pray.
What did I like about Sea Prayer?
Writing
The language is simple that anyone can understand. It is simple and emotionally appealing at the same time. Language is simple, but the situation that it refers to is complex.
There are a few words in the novel. Though there are few words compared to the number of pages, Hosseini successfully conveys the crisis and emotion of a turbulent father.
Illustrations
The next thing that I liked is its beautiful illustrative pages. More than 90% of the book is covered with watercolor illustrative pages. Dan Williams has done a wonderful job in stirring the emotion in the readers. For example, the devastated city of Homs after the bomb barding and the ruin are beautifully depicted on the page.
Relevancy
The story reminds us of the ongoing humanitarian crisis. The Syrian Civil war started in 2011 and it started as a civil war as a result of the Arab Spring. Later the war took many forms: it has become a proxy war between Russia and America, a war between Iran and Gulf countries, a war between sectarian battles, and also a war on terror.
In this war, the common people of Syria have become the victim and millions of people have lost their lives in the deadly warfare.
What I did not like about Sea Prayer?
The story could be developed a little bit. I feel like I want to know what happens to the lives of Marwan and his father.
Who can read?
You can read the book
If you are someone who is looking for a book which you can at one sitting. Then it is for you.
If you are someone who is looking to start his/her book reading journey. Usually, I suggest to my friends to read Paolo Coelho’s The Alchemist. But after reading Sea Prayer, I would recommend this.
If you are looking for a short and an emotional story, grab this one.
Who should skip the book?
You can skip the novel
If you don’t like an illustrative novel.
If you are not looking for a story of refuges’ crises.
Final Thought
1 for the story.
1 for the simple writing yet effective.
1 for the relevancy.
1 for the Illustrations.
1 reduced for not developing the story.