Refugee Boy - Hardcover

Zephaniah, Benjamin

3.73

3,615 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1582347638 ISBN 13: 9781582347639

Publisher: Bloomsbury Pub Plc USA, 2002

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Fourteen-year-old Alem Kelo adjusts to life as a foster child seeking asylum in London, while his Eritrean mother and Ethiopian father work for peace between their homelands in Africa.

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Review:

'The playful, obstinate and courageously humorous tone of Zephaniah's writing shines through ... hilarious and later heartbreaking' -- Alfred Hickling Guardian 20130315

'Fine and humane play... Sissay weaves in poetry, laughter... moments of awe The Times Although tragic, this play is funny. The writers provide barrow-loads of sharp lines and exchanges.' -- Ray Brown British Theatre Guide

'Lemn Sissay's script reflects [Alem's] fears but also has its moments of pure poetry ... it's also funny, not least in the cultural differences of teen-speak' -- Will Ramsey Stage 20130314

'Sweet, funny, highly inventive' -- Yorkshire Post

'Humour and innocence are both to the fore as is a sweetness of tone ... more street than poetic, and personal yet universal, Refugee Boy is well told by impassioned writer' --Charles Hutchinson York Press 20130316

From the Author:

It’s a hard life being labelled ‘political’. It seems that because I’m constantly ranting about the ills of the world I’m expected to have all the answers, but I don’t, and I’ve never claimed to, besides I’m not a politician. What interests me is people. When I hear politicians saying that we are being ‘flooded’ by refugees, I always remind myself that each ‘refugee’ is a person, a person who for some reason has left everything they know and love to find safety in a strange, and sometimes hostile country. I wrote ‘Refugee Boy’ because I realised that every day I was meeting refugees, and each one of them had a unique, and usually terrifying story to tell. I have seen refugee camps in Gaza, Montenegro and other places around the world but when I met Million and Dereje Hailemariam, two teenagers who were being denied asylum in Britain, I knew that I had to write a story that would illustrate the suffering and the struggles that many asylum seekers have to endure. Million and Dereje’s parents feared for the lives of their boys, they did not want them to grow up in an environment where they would witness war on a daily basis. I have also met children whose parents were executed in front of them, or who themselves had been kidnapped and tortured. For ‘Refugee Boy’ I borrowed from the many stories that I have heard and created a story that I believe many refugees would recognise. I would like to know that anyone who reads the book would think before they accuse refugees of looking for a free ride. We all want to live in peace, we all want the best for our families. The Celts, the Angles, the Saxons, the Jamaicans are all refugees of one sort or another. What kind of a refugee are you? And what are you scared of?

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