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By the champion of The Trip Prize, and influenced by a real incident, The Boat People is a gripping and morally complicated novel about a band of refugees who endure a perilous ocean voyage to attain Canada - only to face the risk of deportation and accusations of terrorism in their new land. Once the rusty cargo ship carrying Mahindan and 500 fellow refugees reaches the shores of Uk Columbia, the young dad is overcome with pain relief: he and his six-year-old boy can finally put Sri Lanka's bloody civil battle behind them and commence new lives. Instead, the group is thrown into prison, with government officials and news headlines speculating that covered one of the "boat people" are participants of an terrorist militia. As suspicion swirls and interrogation mounts, Mahindan fears the desperate actions he required to endure and break free Sri Lanka now jeopardize his and his son's chances for asylum. Informed through the alternating perspectives of Mahindan; his lawyer Priya, who reluctantly symbolizes the migrants; and Elegance, a third-generation Japanese-Canadian adjudicator who must decide Mahindan's destiny, The Boat People is a high-stakes book that offers a deeply compassionate zoom lens through which to look at the existing refugee crisis. Inspired by real occurrences, with vivid displays that move between the eerie beauty of north Sri Lanka and combative refugee hearings in Vancouver, where life and loss of life decisions are made, Sharon Bala's stunning debut is an memorable and necessary account for our times.
