Atia Abawi's Blog

I am so thrilled with the wonderful year end reviews for
A Land of Permanent Goodbyes

Thank you Teen Vogue for naming A Land of Permanent Goodbyes one of 2018's "best books for teens," that "will entertain the reader, while also maybe teaching them something new about a world they don't know about."

Thank you Buzzfeed for including A Land of Permanent Goodbyes on its 24 Best YA Books Of 2018 list and the kind description - Atia Abawi "pens a powerful and emotionally true novel with compelling prose about the horrors and hardships refugees face."

Thank you Kirkus Review for listing A Land of Permanent Goodbyes as one of the Best YA Books of 2018 about Facing Trauma.

Another wonderful review for A Land of Permanent Goodbyes

This one from the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

"The bomb that falls on Tareq’s Syrian town kills much of his family, so his father decides to take his remaining children, Tareq and his younger sister Susan, and flee to Europe. The journey is far from easy: the checkpoints of Daesh (ISIS) are brutal moments of panic; beheadings are public spectacle in the towns they pass through; and ultimately, the journey to Greece across the Aegean Sea is one of horror after horror as people are swept away from the capsized raft or succumb to the elements.

Narrated by Destiny itself in dueling tones of resignation and hopefulness, the story personalizes the devastation and violence of the Syrian war through Tareq’s experience, while the landscape of the conflict, the decades/centuries-old factors that fuel it, and political machinations surrounding it are also laid out with clarity and accessibility.

Abawi does not soften the images of war: Tareq witnesses girls being taken by the militia with full knowledge they will be sold as sex slaves; he sees decapitated heads on display; and he sees a mother and father swept away at sea and their rescued baby later die.

For history and/or political science teachers looking to shake apathetic students awake, this could be paired with Ruta Sepety book about World War II refugees in 1945, Salt to the Sea, for a multi-era look at the casualties of war."

Another starred review ⭐️- this time from Kirkus. So incredibly honored that they call #ALandOfPermanentGoodbyes an 'unforgettable novel'.

'From award-winning journalist Abawi (The Secret Sky, 2014) comes an unforgettable novel that brings readers face to face with the global refugee crisis. Tareq, a young Syrian teenager, changes his daily routine as airstrikes on his city increase. When his home is hit by a bomb that kills most of his family in one day, Tareq is suddenly a refugee, traveling with his father and one surviving younger sister, Susan, to another Syrian town, then out of Syria to Turkey. When life in Turkey offers little hope, Tareq's father sends him and Susan to make the treacherous trip to Greece by water. Through incredible dangers and suffering, they meet refugees and aid workers from across the globe. Abawi integrates just enough background information into the plot to make the story and characters comprehensible. The narrator is Destiny, whose authoritative voice suits the tragic and dramatic turns of plot. The narrator's philosophical asides allow readers just enough distance to balance the intimacy of the suffering witnessed along the journey while helping to place the Syrian crisis in global and historical context as part of the cycle of humanity. The direct address challenges readers in a way that is heavy-handed only at the end, but even so it is chillingly effective. A heartbreaking, haunting, and necessary story that offers hope while laying bare the bleakness of the world Tareq leaves and the new one he seeks to join.A Land of Permanent Goodbyes

Very excited to receive a starred review from Publishers Weekly for #ALandOfPermanentGoodbyes!

'...gripping and heartrending novel...'

https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-...A Land of Permanent Goodbyes

Happy to announce I will be at the Nova Teen Book Festival March 10, 2018 to talk about my 2nd novel #ALandofPermanentGoodbyes

A Land of Permanent Goodbyes

http://novateenbookfestival.com/authors/

A Land of Permanent Goodbyes

By Atia Abawi

Very happy to see so many wonderful books about the tragic Syrian #RefugeeCrisis

Am proud #ALandofPermanentGoodbyes made New York Times list!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/06/bo...

By Atia Abawi

In the summer of 2015 while visiting my parents in California, my dad opened up a folder to find the birth certificate and medical papers I needed for what I don’t even remember. Among the documents were our refugee papers and old passports—identification cards I was too young to remember receiving.

A few weeks later my eyes were glued to the TV screen as I watched hundreds of thousands of people escaping the Syrian war. They were risking their lives on boats, trekking along the sides of Europe’s busy highways, and pushing strollers and wheel chairs through muddy fields. They were people who only a few years prior lived normal lives in their comfortable homes.

As a former refugee I saw a familiarity that I couldn’t shake. Although my family’s story took place at a different time and started in a different country, the stories seemed almost parallel.

My parents had a comfortable life with great jobs in the peaceful Afghan capital they had grown up in – but that all came crashing down at the onset of the Soviet war in 1979.

They tried to stick it out, but as the years passed the scarier it became. Both my grandfathers were imprisoned for being army generals under pre-communist leaderships. Even family members within the new government turned on my parents for not embracing communism. To protect their children, my parents finally left.

After their own terrifying and tiresome journey, my parents found refuge first in Germany. My mom was 8-months pregnant with me and my brother was 2-years-old. A year later we were welcomed as refugees to America. Life continued to be difficult but I count my blessings every day for the decision they made and the risks they took. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if they didn’t leave – it never ends happily.

As I watched the Syrians fleeing I felt a pained connection. And when I read and heard the vitriol against them, my heart broke. They were all human beings whose lives had been torn apart and ravaged. They were not people who wanted to leave their country, they were people who were forced to, not just for a better life but for a chance to live.

I wrote A Land of Permanent Goodbyes to humanize the refugee crisis we see today.

Like with my first novel, The Secret Sky, I want readers to see beyond the headlines and short video clips. I’ll never forget, and never want to forget, the pain I felt day after day researching this novel – speaking with refugees, witnessing what was happening in Greece, standing in the lifejacket graveyard among thousand upon thousands of lifejackets, each representing a person who took the risk to live.

The abandoned baby shoe I brought back home with me sits in my office and I often wonder where the little girl is now.

I hope my book can in some way give the reader a better understanding of those who are living the crisis as they relate to the characters. And I hope maybe—just maybe—it will inspire them to do what they can to help or at least understand.