posted on 18 Jun 2017

The Bone Sparrow by Zana Fraillon

This is the story of two young children who love stories and have big imaginations. Subhi has the distinction of being the first child born in an immigration detention centre, an overcrowded miserable place overseen by mostly sadistic guards known as The Jackets. Here he still lives nine years later imprisoned with his sick mother and elder sister, stuck in limbo like all the other frustrated detainees. His family had originally fled from Burma, where as part of the ethnic Muslim minority Rohingya people, they suffered terrible persecution and, as far as he knows, his father is still there. I knew nothing about this particular group of refugees until I read the informative afterword. Despite the obvious boredom and constraints of camp life which include a poor diet, physical punishment and boredom, he lives his life as well as possible, playing games with the other children and making up intricate stories. The central message of the book is that he and others in his terrible situation are sustained by memories captured through storytelling. As Subhi has never known life outside the camp, he learns about the world from his elders and in turn plays his part in telling the stories back to them:

'I need these stories. Everyone else in here has memories to hold on to. Everyone else has things to think on to stop them getting squashed down to nothing. But I don't have memories of anywhere else, and these days just squish into the same. I need their stories. I need them to make my memories.'

As he grows older, he becomes more aware of the hopelessness around him and the growing protest movement by brave individuals, including his best friend Eli. He is also increasingly anxious about his sick mother who seems to be fading away and losing the will to survive.

On the outside of the detention camp lives Jimmie, a scruffy, lonely girl whose mother has died some time before and who lives with her grieving father and elder brother, Jonah. She wears the bone sparrow necklace, a legacy from her mother that turns out to be a cultural symbol of hope and a way of connecting with the past, the future and others like Subhi who need stories to help them understand their difficulties. Jimmie treasures the necklace because she knows that it is the conduit for all the stories of sorrow, loss, love and hope that has been passed down the generations. When, driven by curiosity, she breaks into the refugee camp, the two children form an unlikely friendship reminiscent of the one between Bruno and Schmuel in The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas. They have very different backgrounds but the fierce bond that ties Jimmie and Subhi is their mutual hunger for stories. Once she realises that he loves reading as well, the illiterate Jimmie returns to visit him regularly bringing her mother's precious notebook packed with stories for him to read aloud to her.

It is a long time since I have read a book that had such a powerful emotional impact on me. I have an interest in refugee related stories aimed at children and adults and the subject matter is often harrowing tempered with a mood of relentless optimism. Instead, this one left me feeling an uncomfortable mixture of despair, frustration and anger. When I finished the story and then read the afterword, I must confess that I sobbed for a while. How did I not know that Australia had passed a law that makes it a criminal offence for people to disclose the mistreatment of refugees held in mandatory detention camps? Why are there not howls of protest across the world? I know the answer to this of course because these are relatively invisible people, but it is a salutary reminder of how fictional stories about human rights issues play an important part in campaigning for change.  The Australian author wrote the book in order to raise awareness of the effects of the building global refugee crisis and makes the point that this is about much more than the harsh regime in her own country.

But it wasn't just the subject matter that moved me, as there are plenty of other books that paint a vivid picture of the refugee experience. I have been mulling this over and think that it's deep impact must lie in the way it is written. The strength of the images conjured up by Subhi when he imagines the sea and the solar flares surrounding the camp and the song of a whale ' as old as the universe and as big as a whole country, singing his song to the moon'. I strongly recommend that you read this extraordinary book that somehow manages to convey pain and beauty in equal measure.

Karen Argent

June 2017