A prayer on the night before fleeing across the sea

This is the second item in our 2026 culture special with reviews of artists' works with developmental relevance. 

The night before they flee across the Mediterranean, a father sits on the beach with his young son and tells him about his own childhood and the beauty of his hometown, Homs, before the war in Syria broke out. It had, in “its bustling Old City, a mosque for us Muslims, a church for our Christian neighbours, and a grand Souk for us all,” he enthuses. “I wish you remembered the crowded lanes smelling of fried Kibbeh and the evening walks we took with your mother around Clock Tower Square.”

But now that time seems like a sham to the father. War is raging in Syria, bombs are falling from the sky, people are starving and being buried in rubble, friends and relatives are dying. These are the memories that little Marwan will have of his homeland.

Father and son await the departure of their boat, together with other Syrians and people from Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq and Eritrea. Babies are crying. Mourning and melancholy mingle with fear of the terrors of the sea and the unknown. All of them have had to leave their countries in search of a new home abroad – well aware that they will be unwelcome guests there. All of them are dreading the sunrise.

The father speaks soothingly to his boy, who is sleeping innocently. “Nothing bad will happen,” he says, knowing full well that these are “only words. A father’s tricks”. The child’s faith in him nearly kills him, because tonight all he can think about is how deep the sea is, “how vast, how indifferent”. He can’t protect his son from it. He can only pray.

Inspired by Alan Kurdi

Khaled Hosseini summarises the existential fears of the father from his perspective. The very brief, emotional text was published with illustrations by Dan Williams; the result is a slim, moving volume. The work was inspired by the death of three-year-old Alan Kurdi, who drowned in the Mediterranean in September 2015 while fleeing the war in Syria and washed up on the coast of Turkey. The image of the little boy on the beach was seen around the world. The book is dedicated to the thousands of refugees who have drowned in the Mediterranean while fleeing war and persecution – and are still drowning, while the world looks away.

Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul in 1965. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, he and his family fled into exile in the USA. The physician and author (“The Kite Runner”, “And the Mountains Echoed”) has been a Special Ambassador for the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) since 2006. He also founded the Khaled Hosseini Foundation, which provides humanitarian aid to people in Afghanistan.

Book and links 

Hosseini, K., 2018: Sea Prayer. London, Riverhead Books. Illustrations by Dan Williams.

The text is also available at medium.com/we-the-peoples/sea-prayer-14ff7f564e3a
In 2018, the Guardian produced an animated film version: theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/01/sea-prayer-a-360-story-inspired-by-refugee-alan-kurdi-khaled-hosseini

Dagmar Wolf is D+C’s office manager. 
euz.editor@dandc.eu