An Open Letter
Dearest Reader,
I hope that you are well and that life is giving you everything that you hoped for today. I am writing to you today to tell you about a very special book that I just finished recently, a true story, a piece of contemporary literature, documenting the life & tribulations of one of the ‘Lost Boys of Sudan’.
Emanuel was born in a little village in the South of Sudan which was swallowed by Civil War and strife soon after he was born. Tricked into leaving his family for the promise of being schooled in Ethiopia he was soon to loose everything, his family, his innocence and his youth. He was conscripted into the army as a child soldier and eventually had the opportunity to escape due to the kindness and bravery of a few people.
I think I have done you no diservice in telling you this much so far, because the beauty of this book is not in its factual content. No, it’s beauty lies in something more subtle and more important. It is about how a child growing up in the jaws of war, injustice and starvation sees the world. It is about how people react to situations we can’t even imagine, it gives us a chance to experience and empathize with people whose lives are so different from ours, so socially, politically and geographically distant, that our intuition fails us. This book can and will create space in your heart to see the world as it is and that is its gift.
I find it utterly astonishing that in the 21st century, the horrors of Sudan continue behind the facade of international politics and industry. It scares me that the media endlessly advertise the ‘Financial Crisis’ as most important modern issues that face us while ignoring patently more important issues such as food security, global warming, decline in oceanic fish stock, rain forests and chronic war. It is also close to criminal that our news channels ignore the true plight of fellow human beings and allow the affluent populations of the west to live in a dream of self indulgence. As a society, we have become so insular, so intellectually & ideologically vacant that it is next to impossible to have a meaningful conversation with anyone that is not hopelessly narcissistic or irrelevant to anything that is important.
If you have a heart, then I plead you to read more about Emanuel. The world is open to us if we choose to let it in. It’s just a book and all you have to do is open it.
Please find some further information here:
With Best Wishes,
Vidy Wordsworth.
