‘It is a testimony to the goodness of the many people who assisted them on their way.’ Photo: Book cover of The Boy With Two Hearts: A story of hope by Hamed Amiri
The Boy With Two Hearts: A story of hope by Hamed Amiri
Author: Hamed Amiri. Review by Judith Weeks
This is an inspiring, yet easily read, book about asylum seekers; some Friends may have heard it as BBC Radio 4’s ‘Book of the Week’ a few weeks ago.
It concerns a family from Afghanistan who had three boys, the eldest of whom, Hussein, had a serious heart condition. His parents knew they would not get treatment for him at home and, when the mother of the family was sentenced to death by the Taliban after giving a speech about women’s rights, they knew they had to leave. There began a long, arduous and frightening journey to the UK, which took eighteen months.
The book is written by the second child, Hamed, and although it covers some of the terrors of their journey, and the discomforts and hunger and thirst which they endured, it is a testimony to the goodness of the many people who assisted them on their way.
When they finally arrived in Britain, Hamed refers constantly to ‘volunteers’, which took me back to the days when Sibford Friends were doing these things at least weekly – some are still persisting – not to mention the work currently being undertaken with Syrian refugees by Stratford-upon-Avon Friends and many other Meetings.
The family were eventually settled in Cardiff, where Hussein could receive treatment for his heart. A volunteer took them to their flat and gave the father the keys. Hamed writes: ‘Behind the door wasn’t just a room. There was an apartment, with different rooms, all for us. We just stood in the doorway and looked in. We’d been trying to get here for so long it suddenly felt a bit weird. This was our new place. Not for a day or a week, or a few months, but for as long as we wanted. This was where we were going to go to school and play and grow up. It was where Hussein was going to get better. This was home.’
The family settled into their new life and schools, all eventually obtaining good university degrees.
Hussein obtained treatment for his heart condition, and became a governor of the hospital where he was treated, but this is not a story with a happy sentimental ending. Hussein had to continue heart treatment all his life and died at the age of thirty-two.
I trust that Friends will want to read this book, and that it will find a place in many Meeting house libraries. Hopefully it will give us all a better understanding of what it means to have to seek asylum, and counteract some of the scandalous descriptions and implications about asylum seekers and refugees which appear in the popular press from time to time.
