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The Boat People

About the Book

The Boat People

For readers of Khaled Hosseini and Chris Cleave, THE BOAT PEOPLE is an extraordinary novel about a group of refugees who survive a perilous ocean voyage only to face the threat of deportation amid accusations of terrorism.

When a rusty cargo ship carrying Mahindan and 500 fellow refugees from Sri Lanka's bloody civil war reaches Vancouver's shores, the young father thinks he and his six-year-old son can finally start a new life. Instead, the group is thrown into a detention processing center, with government officials and news headlines speculating that among the "boat people" are members of a separatist militant organization responsible for countless suicide attacks --- and that these terrorists now pose a threat to Canada's national security. As the refugees become subject to heavy interrogation, Mahindan begins to fear that a desperate act taken in Sri Lanka to fund their escape may now jeopardize his and his son's chance for asylum.

Told through the alternating perspectives of Mahindan; his lawyer, Priya, a second-generation Sri Lankan Canadian who reluctantly represents the refugees; and Grace, a third-generation Japanese Canadian adjudicator who must decide Mahindan's fate as evidence mounts against him, THE BOAT PEOPLE is a spellbinding and timely novel that provokes a deeply compassionate lens through which to view the current refugee crisis.

The Boat People
by Sharon Bala

  • Publication Date: December 4, 2018
  • Genres: Fiction
  • Paperback: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Anchor
  • ISBN-10: 0525432469
  • ISBN-13: 9780525432463