Review
The Book of Jonas by Stephen Dau is about many things - the effects of war, the refugee experience, the negative effects of repression, what it's like to be related to an MIA soldier - but it's mostly about the truth.
Jonas is a teenage boy from a deliberately unspecified country. The descriptions seem to fit Afghanistan but would likely also fit most war-torn countries in the Middle East. The U.S. military destroys his village, but Jonas is saved by Christopher, a U.S. soldier who later goes missing. Jonas comes to the United States alone. On the plane over to America, Jonas changes his name from Younis, for reasons he can't explain. The story of what really happened is one of the truths waiting to be explored in this novel.
The Book of Jonas is a great combination of emotional drama and compelling mystery. The narrative is not linear, but it's not hard...
Beyond the Book
The 1951 Refugee Convention which established the UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, defines a refugee as someone who "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country." While Jonas in
The Book of Jonas, does not fit this definition exactly, he was indeed seeking refuge in the United States from the fighting that killed his family, and he could not safely stay in his home country. Once in the United States, Jonas makes friends with other refugees - a sub-culture of people running from horrors elsewhere - in his high school...
