Persian (Farsi) / Iran
Šab bi-Ḫair, Turnā
(Shab Be-kheir Torna)
(Good night Torna)
Akramī, Ǧamāl-al-dīn
(Akrami, Jamal al-din)
(text)
Tihrān: Kānūn-i Parwariš-i Fikrī Kūdakān wa Nūǧawānān (Kanoon), [2017] (=1395 h.sh.). – 158 p.
ISBN 978-600-01-0437-5
Migration | Foreignness | Siblings | Coming of age
Reading age: 12+
White Ravens issue: 2018
Torna and Sina have immigrated to Canada with their father, in spite of their mother’s unwillingness to leave Iran. They hope she will join them soon, but things seem headed in another direction. In fact, the siblings are victims of their father’s ambitions: Once in Canada, he abandons them to their own devices in a large, unfamiliar city. Sina takes responsibility for his older sister as she is sick and hospitalized. Torna gets worse when she hears that her father wants to marry another woman, since this would end any chance of her family reuniting. Torna gradually gets better under Sina’s care, and they set off to return to Turkey and to their mother. Nowadays, asylum seeking and migration are timely themes in children’s books all over the world. Jamal al-din Akrami considers many aspects of these issues for young Iranian readers. The novel’s script won the “Blue Children” prize in 2016 in Iran; this award is given to works that are about children who face difficult circumstances.