What Strange Paradise

What Strange Paradise is a 2021 novel written by acclaimed writer Omar El Akkad, author of American War. The plot is split between “Before” chapters, depicting protagonist Amir’s life as a refugee fleeing Syria as well as his time aboard an ill-fated refugee boat, and “After” chapters, in which he meets the secondary protagonist, Vänna, and contends with the perils of a country hostile to immigrants. El Akkad’s novel sheds light on the motives of migrants and refugees, as well as the insecurities and violence that plague the countries that receive them. What Strange Paradise was a New York Times notable book of the year in addition to being rated as one of the best books of 2021 by the Washington Post, NPR, and Buzzfeed, among others. The novel won the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize and was a finalist for the 2022 Aspen Words Literary Prize and the Oregon Book Award. Born in Cairo, Egypt, Omar El Akkad grew up in Doha, Qatar, moved to Canada, and currently lives in Portland, Oregon. As an award-winning journalist, he has reported on major conflicts across the world including in war in Afghanistan, the trials at Guantánamo Bay, the Arab Spring in Egypt, and Black Lives Matter in Ferguson, Missouri.

Content warning: This guide contains references to distressing scenes (including multiple human deaths and the death of children), xenophobia, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Plot Summary

Amir Utu is a nine-year-old Syrian boy who is forced to flee his hometown after it is leveled by bombings during the Syrian Civil war. Amir travels with his mother, Iman, his stepfather, his Uncle “Quiet Uncle” Younis, and his new half-brother. Amir initially has hearing damage from the bomb that destroyed their house. After taking refuge with family, to whom the fighting and devastation of the war is nothing but propaganda, they cross into Egypt and begin to establish themselves in the port city of Alexandria. Amir becomes suspicious of Quiet Uncle after seeing a mysterious text message on his phone. When Quiet Uncle sneaks out of the apartment late one night, Amir follows him.

Quiet Uncle’s destination is a smuggler ship, the Calypso. An old man in charge of letting migrants onto the ship lets Amir follow his uncle onto the deck, telling him that the passengers are just going to the Greek Isle of Kos for vacation. Once on board, Quiet Uncle spots Amir and is furious. However, he agrees to pay for Amir’s passage and Amir takes a place below deck, with the poorer, mostly African, refugees.

Aboard the Calypso, Amir meets a cast of refugees seeking a better life in the West. Umm Ibrahim is a pregnant woman who practices asking for help for her unborn child in broken English; she takes on a motherly role toward Amir, comforting him and protecting him. Walid is a selfish, antagonistic man who resents Amir and covets his life jacket. Maher is a friendly, thoughtful Palestinian, a former English literature student, who befriends Kamal, a young Egyptian, a former revolutionary and political prisoner. Teddy is a young Eritrean mathematician who is put in charge of steering the boat by the human traffickers. The passengers are kept in line by Mohamed, an apprentice smuggler. Throughout the trip, Mohamed disparages the passengers’ dreams of finding refuge and assimilating in the West. He believes they will never fit in, at best becoming second-class citizens in their new homes, and at worst, facing imprisonment, violence, and deportation.

Trouble brews when the Calypso encounters a late-winter storm. They narrowly avoid a passing ship, and eventually run out of fuel, buffeted by increasingly violent waves, within sight of the shore lights of Kos. Mohamed begins to lose control of the passengers; not even his pistol can quiet their panic. Amir manages to speak to Quiet Uncle through cracks in the deck’s floorboards. Younis apologizes profusely to Amir, claiming he never meant to truly abandon his family.

The Calypso sinks. Amir is presumably the only survivor. He washes up on the shore of a resort amid the wreckage of the ship and the bodies of his companions. Officials are already combing through the wreckage as crowds of curious onlookers and journalists gather while police and soldiers attempt to cordon the area off. Amir regains consciousness and runs away.

Vänna Hermes, a 15-year-old Greek girl, is cleaning her yard when she hears a commotion. Amir emerges, terrified and frantic. Vänna makes the quick decision to hide Amir in the barn on her family’s property. She misdirects the soldiers who were chasing Amir when they arrive. Vänna attempts to communicate with Amir, but the language barrier proves difficult. Amir lies that his name is “David Utu.” Vänna’s mother, Marianne, a bitter, xenophobic women whose personality Vänna has never understood, sends her to get lunch from the Hotel Xenios, the resort where Amir washed up. Vänna attempts to communicate to Amir to remain hidden until she returns. Along the way to the hotel, she speaks with a soldier she recognizes; he informs her about the shipwreck. Vänna guesses that Amir is a survivor of the wreck; she asks if anyone with the last name Utu survived. The soldier does not know.

While Vänna is gone, a migrant couple wanders onto the Hermes’s property. Marianne confronts them, holding them at gunpoint until her friend Colonel Kethros arrives. Kethros and his soldiers are in charge of capturing any illegal migrants on the island. He takes control of the situation, arresting the couple. He leaves, and, on the road back, stops to talk to Vänna. Vänna is intimidated by him and worries for Amir’s safety. She rushes back to her house where she feeds Amir and finds a backpack left behind by the migrant couple. Vänna confronts her mother about the backpack, and Marianne instructs her to take it to Madame El Ward, Vänna’s former French teacher who now runs the migrant detention center.

Vänna takes Amir with her to visit Madame El Ward. Amir is intimidated by the stark conditions of the refugees in the camp. He wants to escape, but Madame El Ward comforts him by speaking to him in his own language. Madame El Ward tells Vänna in Greek that it will be better for Amir to be with his own people in a refugee community on the mainland. She instructs Vänna to take Amir to the lighthouse at the northernmost point of the island, where he can be smuggled off the island by a ferryman who undertakes the voyage every Sunday. She tells Amir that she thinks his uncle is on his way there too. Amir and Vänna leave Madame El Ward just as Colonel Kethros and his men arrive at the compound. Kethros interrogates Madame El Ward, expressing his distaste for the migrants coming to the island. He knows a child survived the shipwreck and escaped on the island. Madame El Ward lets slip that the survivor is a boy.

Vänna and Amir reach the Hotel Xenios, where Vänna steals some new clothes for Amir from a tourist’s room. They are caught by a maid; however, she proves to be sympathetic to Amir’s plight. She gives them some provisions and tells them the location of an outdoor shower that Amir can use. Vänna and Amir head there; Amir is finally able to shower and change out of his salt-caked clothes. They hide in a sea cave. Vänna earns Amir’s trust, and he tells her his real name. The next day, they continue north, a step ahead of Kethros and his soldiers. Amir and Vänna make it to the lighthouse after a grueling day of hiking in the heat. During the night, Vänna sees another migrant boat come ashore.

The colonel has become obsessed with finding Amir. They find signs of Amir and Vänna’s stay in the sea cave. Kethros ignores calls from his superiors. In the afternoon, he dozes at a café, until he wakes from PTSD-inflected dreams of the day he lost his leg to an improvised explosive device. Hearing commotion on the beach, he heads there and saves a local girl from drowning. After he resuscitates her, he slaps her father around, venting his frustration. After hearing of the new migrant ship, Kethros and the other soldiers head to the lighthouse.

Kethros oversees the investigation of the new migrant landing site. When they wrap up their investigation, he happens to see Vänna and Amir fleeing from the lighthouse. Kethros pursues them with his soldiers. The children run into the woods. One of the soldiers, Nicholas, lets them escape to the house where they can await the ferryman. However, Kethros guesses Nicholas’s betrayal, and goes after them. Kethros corners Vänna and Amir. The soldiers take Vänna away in their jeep. However, they are halted at a bridge at the island’s most narrow point by a shepherd and his flock. Vänna takes advantage of the confusion to escape and leaps off of the bridge.

Amir, meanwhile, is interrogated by Kethros. To his surprise, the colonel speaks Amir’s language perfectly. Kethros tells Amir that the world only pretends to care about him and the plight of other refugees; he, unlike the rest of the world, does not forget. He tells Amir that he will take him to the refugee camp for processing. Vänna suddenly reappears and smashes Kethros over the skull with a shovel, knocking him unconscious. The two children flee to the ferryman, who, despite protesting, takes both of them aboard. They sail away from the island.

In the final chapter, El Akkad returns to the morning of the wreck of the Calypso. A man in a protective suit finds the dead body of a boy. Inspecting it, he finds the boy wears a bell-shaped locket, indicating that it is Amir.