A Land of Permanent Goodbyes

A Land of Permanent Goodbyes is a young adult novel from author Atia Abawi. Published in 2018, it tells the story of a teenage refugee, Tareq, who flees his homeland of Syria, making the journey to Turkey, Greece, and eventually Germany. Tareq’s story is complemented by a second narrative, that of Alexia, a young American woman who defers a semester of college in order to support a volunteer organization that assists refugees as they arrive on the Greek islands.

The book’s omnipresent narrator is Destiny, as in fate, who makes connections between Tareq and the many other refugees of the world, past and present. The book argues that refugees can be created anytime and anywhere, due to uncontrollable circumstances, and calls for empathy.

Plot Summary

The book opens in Syria, 2015. A teenage boy, Tareq, is the oldest of his siblings. He has a younger brother Salim; two younger sisters, Farrah and Susan; and twin baby brothers, Ameer and Sameer, who are just five months old. They all live together with their parents, Fayed and Nour, and their paternal grandmother.

Syria is already in a violent conflict between Daesh militants and the government of President Bashar al-Assad.