Power of the Human Heart

1/23/2018

A Land of Permanent Goodbyes by Atia Abawi

As she did in The Secret Sky, Atia Abawi creates a compelling portrait of a young Arab living in the complex world of Western Asia. A Land of Permanent Goodbyes paints in vivid detail the story of Tareq. When a bomb strikes his Syrian city, he is forced to flee with his surviving father and four-year-old sister. They travel through Syria to Turkey, then across the treacherous Aegean Sea to Greece. Members of this shattered family are separated only to be reunited several times, suffer deprivation, and struggle with unrelenting fear.

Destiny is an omniscient narrator, sometimes recalling the past or foretelling events in the future. This voice occasionally breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to the audience, usually to comment or editorialize. The introductory pages of the story include interesting time shifts, featuring Tareq's jarring flashbacks as he recalls gruesome details from his young life.

Details Details

The bigger the issue, the smaller you write. Remember that. You don’t write about the horrors of war. No. You write about a kid’s burnt socks lying on the road. You pick the smallest manageable part of the big thing, and you work off the resonance. Richard Price

Awabi is a master of this technique. One scene with a powerful emotional impact occurs on the inflatable dingy, overcrowded with families attempting to reach Greece. Saboteurs puncture a hole in the boat and those onboard become desperate. To stay afloat they begin to toss all personal items into the water. Some items are too precious to discard: the torn baby blanket of a child now dead, the handkerchief embroidered by a mother, a small packet of family photos. Almost everything else is discarded. "...passengers threw the remnants of their past lives into the Aegean Sea, like a payment to Poseidon as they tumbled through his world."

Reading about Tragic Events

Not gonna lie This is a difficult read. There is a lot, I mean a lot, of death and pain, cruelty and despair. It’s not easy to process it all. I could not read the book in one sitting. I needed time to breathe after some chapters before continuing the narrative. Prepare to have your heart broken. Keep a box of tissues nearby.
I will never look at the refugee crisis in the same way. This book changed me.

Note: this review is based on uncorrected text copy.