Sea Prayer

“My dear Marwan,

in the long summers of childhood,

when I was a young boy the age you are now, your uncles and I

spread our mattress on the roof

of your grandfather’s farmhouse

outside of Homs.”

This close examination of familial relationships demonstrates the closeness the narrator feels toward these people without divulging their names. By referring to these figures only by their relationship to Marwan, Hosseini shows how the narrator prioritizes his perspective and constructs the letter for his benefit. For example, the text refers to the boy’s “uncles” instead of the narrator referring to his own “brothers.” This simplification alludes to Marwan’s young age.

“We woke in the mornings

to the stirring of olive trees in the breeze,

to the bleating of your grandmother’s goat,

the clanking of her cooking pots

the air cool and the sun

a pale rim of persimmon to the east.”

The metaphor comparing the sun to a persimmon connects it to the entire list of nourishing substances that the narrator remembers from his grandfather’s farm. Like the olive trees, the animals, and the grandmother’s cooking, the sun is part of the cycle of feeding and growing. Besides offering that connection, this metaphor provides a visual comparison to this orange fruit as well as implying taste and smell. By invoking multiple senses, Hosseini engages the reader in the text’s descriptions.

“We took you there when you were a toddler.”

As well as grounding the story in terms of time period by suggesting how long ago these memories occurred in Marwan’s life, this sentence foreshadows where else Marwan’s parents are going to take him. The narrator began this story establishing that he would visit the farmhouse during the summers, but