What Strange Paradise

In alternating chapters, we learn the story of Amir’s life and of how he came to be on the ship; and we follow the duo as they make their way towards a vision of safety. But as the novel unfurls, we begin to understand that this is not merely the story of two children finding their way through a hostile world. Omar El Akkad’s What Strange Paradise is the story of our collective moment in this time: of empathy and indifference, of hope and despair – and of the way each of those things can blind us to reality, or guide us to a better one.

What Strange Paradise is the second of Omar El Akkad's novels that I have had the good fortune to read and, while I didn't come away from it feeling quite the same sense of being steamrolled as American War gave me, What Strange Paradise was still an intensely emotional read that brought the refugee crisis into stark relief. El Akkad narrates a few weeks in the life of a nine-year-old boy, Amir, forced from his home by war, who eventually ends up the sole survivor of an ill-fated sea voyage to a promised safety that, as for hundreds of refugees each year in reality, fails to materialise.

I appreciated El Akkad's literary device of alternating chapters between Amir's present day attempts to evade capture by the authorities after the shipwreck and his recent past journeying to and aboard the boat. Both narrative threads are fraught with danger and exciting to read so What Strange Paradise feels like a thrilling adventure novel, even while its underlying issues are so serious. Amir's perspective is very much that of a child and I felt El Akkad captured this perfectly. The concept of Amir and his new friend Vänna's adventures mimicking those in Amir's favourite comic book is an inspired touch and I loved the little details of how the two children build their friendship.

I was also impressed by how El Akkad depicted the reactions of Western holidaymakers. Their frustration at being unable to lie out on a beach for a few hours contrasts with the image we already have of that same beach littered with a hundred and twenty drowned bodies, lying where the tourists want to be. El Akkad deftly portrays this callous indifference to suffering, while also showing how the island authorities, who desperately need the money from tourism, do their best to hide living refugees away in camps and compounds.

It's a pity that What Strange Paradise will probably only be read by people already sympathetic to the plight of refugees as I feel its storyline could do a lot to persuade people who currently dismiss the reality of their situation. It was interesting for me to see equally twisted propaganda employed in war-stricken countries as we are subjected to in the UK. At one point Amir's mother is told by a distant family member that her bombed out home wasn't really destroyed, she shouldn't believe such lies. What Strange Paradise is powerful while being entertaining and, while I did feel a little guilty at the end for having enjoyed reading Amir's adventure, the unreal aspects of his escape make the reality all the more heartbreaking.