Refugee Boy

Last night I finished Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephaniah and I was left speechless. This book is so wonderfully written and has really open my eyes to the lives and torment that refugees face- not just when they are forced to leave their homes, but when they come here looking for asylum.

What it's about:
Life is not safe for Alem. His father is Ethiopian and his mother Eritrean - and with both countries at war, he is welcome in neither place. So his father does an astonishing thing, which at first appears callous, but is in fact the ultimate gift of love from a parent to their child...


Alem is an amazingly strong and brave character created by the brilliant Zephaniah. It provokes tears from you and really makes you question whether you should believe the newspapers claims about the refugees that are "flooding" the country. Here is someone who is being prosecuted for who he is and cannot claim a home in either the places that he comes from.
I seriously recommened this book, even for those who don't like reading. It is so touching and strong.

Benjamin Zephaniah

At the beginning of the book the Author, Benjamin Zephaniah - who is also one of my favourite poets/writers - has left a note to the readers:

It’s a hard life being labelled ‘political’. It seems that because I’m constantly ranting about the ills of the world I’m expected to have all the answers, but I don’t, and I’ve never claimed to, besides I’m not a politician. What interests me is people. When I hear politicians saying that we are being ‘flooded’ by refugees, I always remind myself that each ‘refugee’ is a person, a person who for some reason has left everything they know and love to find safety in a strange, and sometimes hostile country. 

I wrote ‘Refugee Boy’ because I realised that every day I was meeting refugees, and each one of them had a unique, and usually terrifying story to tell. I have seen refugee camps in Gaza, Montenegro and other places around the world but when I met Million and Dereje Hailemariam, two teenagers who were being denied asylum in Britain, I knew that I had to write a story that would illustrate the suffering and the struggles that many asylum seekers have to endure. Million and Dereje’s parents feared for the lives of their boys, they did not want them to grow up in an environment where they would witness war on a daily basis.

I have also met children whose parents were executed in front of them, or who themselves had been kidnapped and tortured. For ‘Refugee Boy’ I borrowed from the many stories that I have heard and created a story that I believe many refugees would recognise. I would like to know that anyone who reads the book would think before they accuse refugees of looking for a free ride. 

We all want to live in peace, we all want the best for our families. The Celts, the Angles, the Saxons, the Jamaicans are all refugees of one sort or another. What kind of a refugee are you? And what are you scared of? 

I leave you with a quote from the book:  "You are a product of two countries, Ethiopia and Eritrea, and we love them both equally but they are pulling themselves and each other apart."