{"product_id":"9781529069495","title":"What Strange Paradise","description":"\u003ch3\u003eAuthor:  Akkad, Omar El \u003c\/h3\u003e\u003ch4\u003eCrete\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003ch5\u003ePublished on 18 August 2022 by PAN MACMILLAN (Picador) in the United Kingdom.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePaperback | 256 pages\u003cbr\u003e130 x 197 x 19 | 186g\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/h5\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Deserves to be an instant classic. I haven't loved a book this much in a long time . . . What Strange Paradise . . . reads as a parable for our times . . . Such beautiful writing . . . This is an extraordinary book.' - New York TimesFrom the widely acclaimed author of American War, Omar El Akkad, a beautifully written, unrelentingly dramatic and profoundly moving novel that brings the global refugee crisis down to the level of a child's eyes.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMore bodies have washed up on the shores of a small island. Another over-filled, ill-equipped, dilapidated ship has sunk under the weight of its too-many passengers: Syrians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Palestinians, all of them desperate to escape untenable lives in their homelands. And only one had made the passage: nine-year-old Amir, a Syrian boy who has the good fortune to fall into the hands not of the officials, but of Vanna: a teenage girl, native to the island, who lives inside her own sense of homelessness in a place and among people she has come to disdain. And though Vanna and Amir are complete strangers and don't speak a common language, Vanna determines to do whatever it takes to save him.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Far From The Madding Crowd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43925479915779,"sku":"9781529069495","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0404\/3207\/4914\/files\/9781529069495.jpg?v=1731408349","url":"https:\/\/www.maddingcrowdlinlithgow.live\/products\/9781529069495","provider":"Far From The Madding Crowd","version":"1.0","type":"link"}