The Bone Sparrow

Shortlisted for just about every award going, Zana Fraillon's The Bone Sparrow is a beautiful book about a painful subject.

It's oddly timely that this review coincides with the long-overdue news that children are being removed from detention on Nauru. It seems the tide of public opinion has turned at last, and perhaps the chilling cruelty of Australia's detention policies may be reversed. Meanwhile, The Bone Sparrow is set in an unnamed mainland detention centre where conditions are almost as inhuman as they are on Manus and Nauru. Subhi was born there; he knows no other world than the harsh reality inside the fence, but he fins his own sources for hope in his friend Eli, his sister and mother, the pictures he draws, the games they invent, and the stories they tell to each other and themselves.

I found The Bone Sparrow a difficult book to read -- not because of the writing, which is lovely, hopeful and sometimes humorous -- but because the subject matter is so shameful. At the end of the book, it seems there may be grounds for hope. Let's pray that there is hope for the real-life victims of refugee detention, too.