I cried a lot

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Not to be read whilst you're feeling grief in your personal life. This is an intensely moving story shown out of chronological sequence and through the eyes of just one of the characters.

Nuri travels across Europe with his wife Afra, fleeing from war-torn Syria to the strange culture of England. He frequently remembers the happiest parts of his life, keeping hundreds of beehives with his friend Mustafa. The word-pictures of these times are poetic. In contrast, some of his experiences are stark with violence and cruelty, particularly before leaving Aleppo and in Athens. Nuri forms friendships with companions along the way though, as a homeless traveller, he needs to leave them and move on.

I'm not usually a person who cries in films or when reading books. This was an exception and I frequently found myself welling up in sympathy with the helplessness of one or other of the characters. I have definitely more understanding now of how hard it is to seek asylum in a foreign country.