Overview

Tale of Ahmed is a gripping fictional account of the dangerous journey of a teenage boy, Ahmed, who travels from Afghanistan, across the Middle East and Europe, to seek refuge in England. Author Henry Cockburn lives at one end of a long trail stretching from Afghanistan to the southeast coast of England. His home in Kent is close to where small, frail boats arrive bringing refugees on the last lap of their 6,000-mile journey from Kabul and the Hindu Kush. Meeting and talking with refugees, Henry became aware that even they themselves rarely understand the heroic nature of their odyssey. The journey’s never-ending risks have become second nature to them. For most other people, they are simply unknown. Correcting such misperceptions is one of the objectives of this powerful story. Written in the form of an epic poem and richly illustrated by the author, Tale of Ahmed describes how its eponymous hero gets help from fellow travelers and finds unexpected friends along the way. But Ahmed is also exploited for money by crooks and cheats, as well as targeted as a pariah. This unusual and unputdownable fable recounts with great sensitivity the Afghans’ sufferings and their courage and resilience in making a grueling passage.

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9781682194270

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Reviews

Henry Cockburn has created a work that is vivid, haunting and a call to conscience. His gifts as a storyteller and artist shine throughout. So too does his humanity. A book to treasure. -Fergal Keane, foreign correspondent with BBC News

In deceptively simple verse, accompanied by his own distinctive artwork, Henry Cockburn succeeds in evoking the ordeal that millions today endure unseen-the hope and horror of the refugee experience. -Anthony Summers, Pulitzer Prize Finalist and author of The Eleventh Day Henry Cockburn has created a work that is vivid, haunting and a call to conscience. His gifts as a story teller and artist shine throughout. So too does his humanity. A book to treasure. -Fergal Keane, foreign correspondent with BBC News Tale of Ahmed is a tremendous feat of imagination and empathy, a large-scale response to the plight of modern-day migrants fleeing their homelands through necessity. Sustained inventive rhyming and poetic craft underpin the picaresque adventures of the young Afghan, Ahmed. He experiences the trials of dealing with mercenary people-smugglers and hard-hearted border guards along with the thrill of meeting new companions and benefiting from their wisdom and their friendship. Cockburn intersperses his involving tale with passages of myth and fantasy but always returns the reader to the often brutal, always hazardous, sometimes redemptive, reality of migration. -Derek Sellen, poet Tale of Ahmed is an extraordinary achievement of compassion by a young poet and artist. Henry Cockburn's uncanny ability to rhyme complex events in the life of refugees escaping Afghanistan for a better world rings true to my own terrifying experience of escape: the sense of dread at night among strangers, the hunger and degradation after months on the road walking, hiding, waiting...Henry Cockburn's narrative poem must surely be the break-out attempt to bring us into the imaginative world of the refugee. -Atiqullah Khan, former asylum seeker

Author Information

Henry Cockburn is an artist and writer who grew up in Moscow and Washington DC, where his father Patrick Cockburn worked as a journalist. He now lives in Canterbury, Kent. His life changed dramatically when he had a breakdown in 2002, after which he spent several years in mental hospitals. With his father, he wrote Henry’s Demons, which was shortlisted for the 2011 Costa prize. Nelofer Pazira-Fisk was born in Kabul and was 6 years old when the Russians invaded Afghanistan. After a decade of war, Nelofer and her family escaped to Pakistan, and from there to Canada. She is an internationally acclaimed film producer and the author of A Bed of Red Flowers, which is a compelling portrait of the life of Afghan under occupation, and their resilience in the face of war.

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