In the Sea There are Crocodiles: The True Story of Enaiatollah Akbari
Paperback – International Edition, August 6, 2012
Description
"The personal stories of refugees and their life-or-death battles are usually lost in between the lines of news reports. In direct and undecorated prose, Fabio Geda beautifully delivers the human experience of Enaiatollah, a ten-year-old Afghani boy, whose will for survival is more than remarkable. In the Sea There Are Crocodiles will make you laugh and cry, and it will also make you a better person. Everyone should read this book." —Marina Nemat, author of Prisoner of Tehran .xa0"A moving and eye-opening account chronicle of hardships no child should have to endure, mitigated by intermittent kindnesses." — Sunday Times Born in Turin in 1972, FABIO GEDA is an Italian novelist who works with children in difficulties. He writes for several Italian magazines and newspapers, and teaches creative writing at the Italian school of storytelling Scuola Holden, inTurin. This is his first book to be translated into English. From the Hardcover edition.
Features & Highlights
- A bestseller in Italy, a beautiful, heartbreaking novel based on the true story of an Afghan boy's journey in search of safety.One night before putting him to bed, Enaiatollah's mother tells him three things: don't use drugs, don't use weapons, don't steal. The next day he wakes up to find she isn't there. They have fled their village in Ghazni to seek safety outside Afghanistan but his mother has decided to return home to her younger children. Ten-year-old Enaiatollah is left alone in Pakistan to fend for himself.In a book based on a true story, Italian novelist Fabio Geda describes Enaiatollah's remarkable five-year journey from Afghanistan to Italy where he finally managed to claim political asylum. His ordeal took him through Iran, Turkey and Greece, working on building sites in order to pay people-traffickers, and enduring the physical misery of border crossings squeezed into the false bottoms of lorries or trekking across inhospitable mountains. A series of almost implausible strokes of fortune enabled him to get to Turin, where he found help from an Italian family and met Fabio Geda.The result of their friendship is this unique book in which Enaiatollah's engaging, moving voice is brilliantly captured by Geda's subtle storytelling. In Geda's hands, Enaiatollah's journey becomes a universal story of stoicism in the face of fear, and the search for a place where life is liveable.
- From the Hardcover edition.
