The People S Boat

By the winner of The Journey Prize, and inspired by a real incident, The Boat People is a gripping and morally complex novel about a group of refugees who survive a perilous ocean voyage to reach Canada – only to face the threat of deportation and accusations of terrorism in their new land. When the rusty cargo ship carrying Mahindan and five hundred fellow refugees reaches the shores of British Columbia, the young father is overcome with relief: he and his six-year-old son can finally put Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war behind them and begin new lives. Instead, the group is thrown into prison, with government officials and news headlines speculating that hidden among the “boat people” are members of a terrorist militia. As suspicion swirls and interrogation mounts, Mahindan fears the desperate actions he took to survive and escape Sri Lanka now jeopardize his and his son’s chances for asylum. Told through the alternating perspectives of Mahindan; his lawyer Priya, who reluctantly represents the migrants; and Grace, a third-generation Japanese-Canadian adjudicator who must decide Mahindan’s fate, The Boat People is a high-stakes novel that offers a deeply compassionate lens through which to view the current refugee crisis. Inspired by real events, with vivid scenes that move between the eerie beauty of northern Sri Lanka and combative refugee hearings in Vancouver, where life and death decisions are made, Sharon Bala’s stunning debut is an unforgettable and necessary story for our times.

There may be no other sailing ship in North America that has touched the lives of so many people during 80-plus years of existence as HMCS Oriole. The design of famed MIT marine architect George Owen, the pride of original owner George Gooderham, commodore of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club, the steadfast training ship of the Royal Canadian Navy for more than five decades, and ultimately "the people's boat" in her home harbours of Esquimalt and Victoria, BC, HMCS Oriole continues to add to her legacy with every new nautical adventure. Her fascinating history is captured by author and avid mariner Shirley Hewett in a narrative based on extensive interviews with Oriole's past captains and crew. Hewett listened to their stories, shared their insights and sailed the New Zealand leg of a South Pacific good-will voyage in 1998 aboard the Oriole as part of an international crew. "She is a ship that manufactures dreams," Hewett said. "Mine became to tell her many stories."

Götz Aly pens a forgotten chapter in the history of imperialism as the story of a single object: a majestic fifteen-meter boat, looted from Papua New Guinea during a German colonial expedition and since displayed in Berlin museums. Aly restores attention to colonial conquests and lays bare the vexed nature of ethnological appropriation.

This book compares the policies of Australia and Italy towards boat people who have arrived in the two countries since the early 1990s. While the regular and varied inflow of immigrants arriving at national airports, ferry terminals and train stations is seldom witnessed by the public, the arrival of boat people is often played out in the media and consequently attracts disproportionate political and public attention. Both Australia and Italy faced similar dilemmas, but the nature of political debate on the issue, the types of strategies introduced, and the effects that policy changes had on boat people diverged considerably. This book argues that contrasting migration path dependencies, disparate political values within the Left, and varying international obligations best explain the different approaches taken by the two countries to boat people.

This is a description of an interesting and mostly unknown event in recent history which is touted by the publisher as representing a major revolution in naval warfare. In truth, the event makes a fine politics and espionage thriller, but it hardly signifies a radical transformation of military doctrine. The concept of wars being fought with missiles exclusively is not new. Israel was in a position to use this concept in war time conditions first. Based on empirical surveys as well as personal interviews, this study examines the cultural values, family milieu, and psychological characteristics that account for the successes of the Indochinese Boat People (Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian) in this country. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Reproduction of the original.