The Boy on the Beach

My Family's Escape from Syria and Our Hope for a New Home

By: Tima Kurdi

Narrated by: Soneela Nankani

An intimate and poignant memoir about the family of Alan Kurdi - the young Syrian boy who became the global emblem for the desperate plight of millions of Syrian refugees - and of the many extraordinary journeys the Kurdis have taken, spanning countries and continents.

Alan Kurdi’s body washed up on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea on September 2, 2015, and overnight, the political became personal, as the world awoke to the reality of the Syrian refugee crisis. Tima Kurdi first saw the shocking photo of her nephew in her home in Vancouver, Canada. But Tima did not need a photo to understand the truth - she and her family had already been living it.

In The Boy on the Beach, Tima recounts her idyllic childhood in Syria, where she grew up with her brother Abdullah and other siblings in a tight‑knit family. A strong‑willed, independent woman, Tima studied to be a hairdresser and had dreams of seeing the world. At 22, she emigrated to Canada, but much of her family remained in Damascus. Life as a single mother and immigrant in a new country wasn’t always easy, and Tima recounts with heart‑wrenching honesty the anguish of being torn between a new home and the world she’d left behind.

As Tima struggled to adapt to life in a new land, war overtook her homeland. Caught in the crosshairs of civil war, her family risked everything and fled their homes. Tima worked tirelessly to help them find safety, but their journey was far from easy. Although thwarted by politics, hounded by violence, and separated by vast distances, the Kurdis encountered setbacks at every turn, they never gave up hope. And when tragedy struck, Tima suddenly found herself thrust onto the world stage as an advocate for refugees everywhere, a role for which she had never prepared but that allowed her to give voice to those who didn’t have an opportunity to speak for themselves.

From the jasmine‑scented neighbourhoods of Damascus before the war to the streets of Aleppo during it, to the refugee camps of Europe and the leafy suburbs of Vancouver, The Boy on the Beach is one family’s story of love, loss, and the persistent search for safe harbour in a devastating time of war.

©2018 Tima Kurdi (P)2018 Simon & Schuster

Humanizes the refugee experience

I love this book. Not crazy about the narrator’s plaintive reading. But the story provides context and dimensions to a complex situation that has been whittled down to a 30 second soundbite. The descriptions of how her family is much like that of any modern family across the globe, how multiple generations of her family were and still are impacted by the war and the way that the diaspora can only complicate the pursuit of recovery from loss and trauma are something I have not seen in stories like this before. Thank you Tima for sharing your heartbreaking, beautiful, and powerful story.

Children always pay the price

I was searching in YouTube for a song I used to listen when I was a kid. I found it and was streaming it when the famous image of Alan caught my eye, it was a cartoon image but it just made me so sad that I decided to copy the image. Later that day I was trying to find it in the internet to figure out who was the artist and the purpose behind it, but little did I know that the cartoon was made out of a real picture. Alan Kurdi was not the first nor will he be the last child victim but he bacame the Voice for the suffering of our Children.

Heartbreakingly wonderful

Opened my eyes and made me feel connected to humanity again. Heartbreaking story but I finally understand the refugee crisis a little bit. Thank you for writing this book and for all of your help with this issue Tima.