Omar El Akkad
What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad tells the tragic story of illegal migrants escaping from their war-torn countries and political persecution. Originating from different countries in Africa and the Middle East, the migrants share a common dream of a better future for themselves and their families. To realize that dream, they obtain false documents and pay exorbitant fees to human traffickers to get them to Europe.
The story unfolds in alternating chapters. The “Before” chapters focus on a nine-year-old Syrian by named Amir. We learn about his background, his family’s life, and how he ended up on the Calypso, an ill-fated fishing boat smuggling migrants to an unnamed European island.
The “After” chapters open with Amir as the lone survivor after the Calypso capsizes in the ocean. Amir wakes up on the beach, surrounded by corpses washed ashore. When men approach him in white containment suits shouting in a language he doesn’t understand, Amir runs. He encounters Vanna, a local teenage girl who springs into action to help him. She hides him, feeds him, clothes him, and initially smuggles him into a local refugee camp. The director of the camp asks Vanna to escape with Amir to the other end of the island where a ferryman will take him to a Syrian community at the port. All the while, Vanna and Amir run from island police officers eager to capture Amir.
The novel is difficult to read because it captures the desperation, hardships, and financial burdens experienced by migrants willing to risk death in the hope of a better life. The “Before” chapters describe in vivid detail the arduous journey and the fear, squalor, and stench of human bodies squashed together in cramped spaces without the benefit of food or water in a broken-down fishing boat. Amir sits next to a pregnant woman, Umm Ibrahim, who defends him and shares her food with him. The migrants bicker, disagree, rehearse the stories they intend to tell immigration officials, sleep, snore, relieve themselves, and cling to their hopes and dreams. Mohamed, one of the smugglers, repeatedly tries to puncture their dreams with the reality he claims awaits them.
The “After” chapters depict a frightened Amir struggling to make sense of his new surroundings. His fear and anxiety are palpable. Vanna assumes the role of his guardian, determined to get him to the ferryman. In spite of the language barrier separating them, the two form an inseparable bond, communicating through hand gestures. These chapters highlight the callous desensitization of tourists and some local residents to the plight of refugees.
The temporal shifts of before and after with the desperate migrants on the one hand and the islanders on the other mirror the us-versus-them dynamic that characterizes our divided world. Straddling between the two worlds is a young Syrian child and a European teenager who connect simply and honestly through their shared humanity. In clear, vivid, brutally honest, and riveting prose, El Akkad sheds light on the desperate and tragic plight of migrants before, during, and after their quest for freedom. He gives face and voice to the refugee “other,” and he does so with compassion and empathy. The unexpected twist at the end of the novel underscores the urgency of addressing this global humanitarian crisis.