A Safe Passage

Description

In a world where humans are reduced to mere objects, and the earth becomes a death trap, Jan Dost narrates his novel, A Safe Passage, through the eyes of a Kurdish child torn apart by war before reaching manhood. Between the olive grove and the gunpowder of occupation, between the chalk’s shadows and the bitterness of displacement, we follow the story of Kamiran, who lost everything: his home, his homeland, even his childlike body, in a vortex of political nightmares and existential tragedies. Kamiran doesn’t recount his anguish to the world, but rather to a yellow piece of chalk, his only companion in a camp drowning in this novel, which draws inspiration from Kafka, the Kurdish epic, and the memory of the flood. Jan Dost leaves the reader no respite, instead compelling them to confront the difficult question: Is there a safe passage in a time when humanity is no longer possible? A novel about stolen childhood, about love in a time of bloodshed, about humanity when forced to become inanimate in order to endure life.