In the Sea there are Crocodiles

Key Features

• Already a bestseller in Italy, foreign rights have been sold around the world making this a potential International Bestseller along the lines of The Kite Runner.
• A story of hope: a book that shows that goodness and integrity win out in the end. An uplifting message that will encourage word of mouth.
• This book takes a true experience and turns it into very appealing fiction. There are many stories of people trafficking and asylum seekers but few as powerful as this one.
• Fabio Geda and Enaiatollah Akbari are both very promotable: Fabio speaks English, Enaiatollah (who is now in his early twenties) speaks brilliantly about his experiences. He wowed audiences on Italian TV sending the book shooting up the bestseller lists in Italy.

About the Book: In the Sea there are Crocodiles

A beautiful, heartbreaking novel based on the true story of an Afghan boy's journey in search of a home.

One night before putting him to bed, Enaiatollah's mother tells him three things: don't use drugs or weapons, don't cheat, don't steal. The next day he wakes up to find she isn't there. Ten-year-old Enaiatollah is left alone at the border of Pakistan to fend for himself.

In a book that takes a true story and shapes it into a beautiful piece of fiction, Italian novelist Fabio Geda describes Enaiatollah's remarkable five-year journey from Afghanistan to Italy where he finally managed to claim political asylum aged fifteen. His ordeal took him through Iran, Turkey and Greece, working on building sites in order to pay people-traffickers, and enduring the physical misery of dangerous border crossings squeezed into the false bottoms of lorries or trekking across inhospitable mountains. A series of almost implausible strokes of fortune enabled him to get to Turin, find help from an Italian family and meet Fabio Geda, with whom he became friends.

The result of their friendship is this unique book in which Enaiatollah's engaging, moving voice is brilliantly captured by Geda's subtly simple storytelling. In Geda's hands, Enaiatollah's journey becomes a universal story of stoicism in the face of fear, and the search for a place where life is liveable.

About the Author: Fabio Geda

Born in Turin in 1972, Fabio Geda is an Italian novelist who works with children in difficulties. He writes for several Italian magazines and newspapers, and teaches creative writing in the most famous Italian school of storytelling (Scuola Holden, in Turin). This is his first book to be translated into English.

Reviews

'A true story woven into a wonderful piece of fiction. This is a story of perseverance and endurance made all the more moving as it is based on truth' - Vanessa Lewis, The Bookseller

'Fabio has a poetic turn of phrase, but lets events speak for themselves. The result is a moving and eye-opening chronicle of hardships no child should have to endure, mitigated by intermittent kindness' - Nicolette Jones, The Sunday Times

'Geda's voice combines the plucky survivor's determination of his charge with moments of pathos-soaked poignancy and others of joyful laughter. This little gem, beautifully and unobtrusively translated, will raise tears of sorrow and of joy' - Independent

'Based on a true story, this extraordinary tale of a young boy's search for a home will be published simultaneously in adult and YA editions' -Fiona Noble, The Bookseller