It’s late in the night and a father is holding his sleeping son in his arms on a beach waiting for a boat to arrive before dawn. He is speaking to his beloved son about how wonderful life was when he was just a toddler: visiting his grandparents’ farmhouse in the beautiful countryside around Homs and building dams in the creek nearby. Listening to the bleating of his grandmother’s goat in the early morning. Walking through the Old City of Homs with his mother and eating fried kibbeh. But then, this little boy is too young to remember the happy past. All he’ll remember now are the bombs and the soldiers and having to flee with so many frightened people.

Khaled Hosseini wrote Sea Prayer after hearing the story of Alan Kurdi, a little three-year-old Syrian boy who was drowned in the Mediterranean Sea. The image of his little body washed up on the beach in Turkey haunted him so badly that he was impelled to write this book. It is written in beautiful poetic verse which tugs at your heartstrings. Listen to the father speaking to his sleeping son as they wait to begin a dangerous sea journey to a safer land.

My dear Marwan, I look at your profile
in the glow of this moon, my boy
your eyelashes like calligraphy,
closed in guileless sleep.
And I say to you, ‘Hold my hand.
Nothing bad will happen.’

Now if the author’s name seems familiar to you, yes, he is the award-winning writer who wrote The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. He has dedicated this latest book to ‘the thousands of refugees who have perished at sea fleeing war and persecution.’ This may be a small book in size, but the impact it will have on its readers is huge, especially as the words are perfectly complemented by Dan Williams’ stunningly evocative watercolour illustrations.

Reviewed by Merle Morcom