 | |
| Author | Tima Kurdi |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
Publication date | April 17, 2018 |
| Pages | 288 |
| ISBN | 9781501175244 |
The Boy on the Beach is a 2018 memoir by Tima Kurdi about her family's attempts to escape the Syrian civil war and the circumstances that lead to the death of Alan Kurdi.
The Boy on the Beach was published in 2018 by Simon & Schuster, written by Canadian-Syrian activist Tima Kurdi. Kurdi has spoken in two media interviews about how she see the book as a call to action for the global community to do more for refugees. [1] [2]
The Boy on the Beach documents the Kurdi family's efforts to escape the Syrian civil war and the circumstances that led to the deaths of Alan, Ghalib Kurdi, and Rehanna (their mother), in 2015. [3] [1] [4] The book starts by describing the family's comfortable life in Damascus prior to the Syrian civil war. [5] As war starts, the family move to Kobanî, before fleeing Syria and attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea. [5] When their boat capsizes, their father, Abdullah Kurdi, survives, but his two children Alan and Ghalib both drown along with his wife Rehanna. [5] A photograph of Alan caught the attention of the international media and public attention. [3]
The book made the long-list for the Canada Reads 2019 book competition. [3]
Book reviewer, Sheniz Janmohamed, writing in Quill & Quire credits the author for humanising the Syria conflict. [6]
Fin Donnelly is a Canadian politician, who was elected to the House of Commons of Canada to represent the electoral district of Port Moody—Coquitlam. He is a member of the New Democratic Party. Donnelly was first elected as a Member of Parliament in a by-election on November 9, 2009, in the New Westminster—Coquitlam electoral district. In the one year he spent in the 40th Canadian Parliament, he acted as the NDP's fisheries critic and introduced six private member bills. He was re-elected in 2011 and in the ensuing 41st Parliament he re-introduced the same six bills, two of which — concerning the crime of luring a child — were adopted in the Safe Streets and Communities Act. He also introduced a bill titled Ban on Shark Fin Importation Act which was defeated in a vote in the Conservative-majority House. He acted as the Official Opposition's critic on Fisheries and Oceans until the 2012 leadership election after which Tom Mulcair moved him over to critic on Western Economic Diversification and then demoted him to role of deputy critic. Donnelly again won re-election in the 2015 federal election and was promoted back to fisheries critic. In the 42nd Parliament he re-introduced his previous bill to make closed containment facilities mandatory for commercial finfish aquaculture but the bill was defeated.
Christopher A. Alexander, is a former diplomat and former Conservative Party of Canada politician. He served as Canada's Minister of Citizenship and Immigration from 2013 to 2015. He represented the riding of Ajax—Pickering, in Ontario, in the House of Commons of Canada from 2011 to 2015. He was defeated by his Liberal predecessor Mark Holland in the 2015 election.
| birth_place = Cochrane, Ontario, Canada | death_date = | death_place = |nationality = Canadian
Vivek Shraya is a Canadian musician, writer, and visual artist. She currently lives in Calgary, Alberta, where she is an assistant professor in the creative writing program at the University of Calgary. As a trans woman of colour, Shraya often incorporates her identity in her music, writing, visual art, theatrical work, and films. She is a seven-time Lambda Literary Award finalist, and considered a Great Canadian Filmmaker of the Future by CBC Arts.
Refugees of the Syrian Civil War are citizens and permanent residents of Syria who have fled the country over the course of the Syrian Civil War. The pre-war population of the Syrian Arab Republic was estimated at 22 million (2017), including permanent residents. Of that number, the United Nations (UN) identified 13.5 million (2016) as displaced persons, requiring humanitarian assistance. Of these, since the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011 more than six million (2016) were internally displaced, and around five million (2016) had crossed into other countries, seeking asylum or placed in Syrian refugee camps worldwide. It is often described as one of the largest refugee crises in history.
Christopher Gudgeon is an author, poet and screenwriter. He has contributed to numerous magazines – including Playboy, MAD and National Lampoon – and written almost 20 books, from critically acclaimed fiction and poetry like Song of Kosovo¸ Encyclopedia of Lies, Assdeep in Wonder and Greetings from the Vodka Sea, to celebrated biographies of Stan Rogers and Milton Acorn, to popular history on subjects as varied as sex, fishing and lotteries. He is also executive director of It Gets Better Canada, a not-for-profit organization promoting positive messages of hope for LGBTQ+ youth.
Alan Kurdi, initially reported as Aylan Kurdi, was a two-year-old Syrian boy of Kurdish ethnic background whose image made global headlines after he drowned on 2 September 2015 in the Mediterranean Sea along with his mother and brother. Alan and his family were Syrian refugees trying to reach Europe from Turkey amid the European refugee crisis. Photographs of his body were taken by Turkish journalist Nilüfer Demir and quickly went viral, prompting international responses. Since the Kurdi family had reportedly been trying to reach Canada, his death and the wider refugee crisis became an issue in the 2015 Canadian federal election.
Nilüfer Demir is a Turkish photojournalist based in Bodrum, Turkey. She has worked with the Doğan News Agency since she was a teenager. She covered the European migrant crisis during the summer of 2015, and her photographs of Alan Kurdi became world news on 2 September 2015. She came across the body of Kurdi on the beach and took a number of photos.
Europe Sees Syria is an international activist campaign that began in Glasgow, Scotland after the death of Alan Kurdi whose image made global headlines after he drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, as part of the Syrian refugee crisis. The Europe Sees Syria campaign works to help refugees and tackling European refugee crisis. The campaign was founded as a Facebook page by Alexis Stearns. Although the activists run a stable social media pages, the overall Europe Sees Syria movement is a decentralised network, and has no formal hierarchy or structure.
"Oh Canada" is a song by Australian singer-songwriter Missy Higgins, and inspired by Alan Kurdi—a drowned Syrian boy whose body washed up on a Turkish beach in September 2015. The track was released on 19 February 2016 with 100% of net profits from the song to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.
Omran Daqneesh is a Syrian boy who, at age five, gained media attention after footage of him injured appeared on the Internet following a reported air strike.
Danny Ramadan is a Syrian–Canadian award-winning novelist, public speaker, and LGBTQ-refugee activist who was born in Damascus, Syria. Ramadan's work focuses on themes of immigration, identity, diaspora and belonging. His debut novel, The Clothesline Swing, won multiple awards. Currently, Ramadan lives in Vancouver, British Columbia with his husband.
Refugee is a young adult literature novel by Alan Gratz published by Scholastic Corporation in 2017.
The International Observatory of Human Rights is a London-based non-governmental organization focused on exposing human rights violations. It runs a TV channel dedicated to human rights campaigns, the first of its kind, via the netgem.tv interactive platform.
The Marrow Thieves is a young adult novel by Métis Canadian writer Cherie Dimaline, published on September 1, 2017 by Cormorant Books through its Dancing Cat Books imprint.
What Strange Paradise is a novel by Canadian writer Omar El Akkad, published in 2021 by Penguin Random House. The novel centres on Amir, a young boy from Syria who has survived the sinking of a ship that was carrying him and other refugees, and his developing bond with Vänna, a teenage girl who resides on the island where Amir washed up after the shipwreck.
Annahid Dashtgard is an Iranian-born Canadian author, activist and consultant. Her family fled Iran for England in 1980, she later moved to Alberta, Canada. In 2019, she published her memoir Breaking the Ocean: A Memoir of Race, Rebellion, and Reconciliation.
Tima Kurdi is a Syrian-Canadian author and human rights activist. Born in Damascus, she moved to Canada as a young adult and is based in Coquitlam, British Columbia. Kurdi is the author of The Boy on the Beach, which documents the circumstances that led to the death of her nephews Ghalib and Alan Kurdi, and their mother, Rehanna as the fled the Syria civil war.
Doaa Al Zamel is a Syrian refugee and one of 11 survivors of 2014 Malta migrant shipwreck that killed approximately 500 people.
A Hope More Powerful than the Sea is a book by Melissa Fleming about Syrian refugee Doaa Al Zamel's experiences leading up to and during the 2014 Malta migrant shipwreck.