Overview

In this touching and insightful book, a young Syrian boy growing up in Damascus fights to survive a brutal war of repression waged by the Al-Assad government against its own people. As friends and relatives are imprisoned and murdered, Bashar becomes increasingly active in efforts to help his family stave off hunger and the cold of winter. Fearing for the 14-year-old boy’s life, his family sends him to Turkey to avoid conscription into the Syrian army and to find medical help for his ailing father. Bashar is abused by employers in Turkey and tries to cross the Mediterranean to Greece. The first time, the smuggler’s rubber raft is returned to Turkey. The second time, it sinks and the survivors are again returned to Turkey. The third time, Bashar makes it to Greece and internment in the infamous Moria refugee camp. From Greece, he is chosen to fill a quota of refugees to be transferred to Finland. Although he is now safe, he suffers from trauma-induced psychological problems that are only cursorily addressed by the Finnish social welfare system. John Simon, himself an American immigrant to Finland, develops a close relationship with Bashar – now a young man – and tries to help him deal with the many problems he faces in his new life. Bashar’s story reveals both the resilience of teenage unaccompanied asylum seekers and the limits of a one-size-fits-all response by host countries to their assimilation.

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9780761874850

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John B. Simon is the author of To Become Somebody: Growing up against the Grain of Society, Kone’s Prince, and Strangers in a Stranger Land: How One Country's Jews Fought an Unwinnable War alongside Nazi Troops… and Survived.

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