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The Optician of Lampedusa Hardcover – 29 Sept. 2016

by Emma Jane Kirby (Author)

129 ratings

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From an award-winning BBC journalist, this moving book turns the testimony of an accidental hero into a timeless story about the awakening of human courage and conscience.

'I can hardly begin to describe to you what I saw as our boat approached the source of that terrible noise. I hardly want to. You won't understand because you weren't there. You can't understand. You see, I thought I'd heard seagulls screeching. Seagulls fighting over a lucky catch. Birds. Just birds.'

Emma-Jane Kirby has reported extensively on the reality of mass migration today. In The Optician of Lampedusa she brings to life the moving testimony of an ordinary man whose late summer boat trip off a Sicilian island unexpectedly turns into a tragic rescue mission.

Print length

128 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Allen Lane
Publication date

29 Sept. 2016
Dimensions

14.4 x 1.3 x 22.3 cm
ISBN-10

0241295289
ISBN-13

978-0241295281
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Product description

Review

Poetically written, absorbing, harrowing . . . a moving and unusual achievement (Fiona Wilson The Times)

An important book. . . I cried all the way through (Tracy Chevalier)

An ambitious and important book that goes far beyond the voyeurism of 24-hour news to identify something timeless and troubling... a moral tale, following events through the eyes of the fastidiously ordinary optician never named in the text and thereby transformed into an everyman . . . Emma Jane Kirby challenges us to do more than cry. (Peter Stanford Observer)

A novelistic retelling of a man's tragic encounter with the European migrant crisis - a true story that brings a fresh perspective to events that are often hard to visualise. (Melissa Lawford Financial Times)

An eloquent, extraordinary story for our times (Tablet, Book of the Year)

A moving insight (Financial Times, Book of the Year)

A book that can be devoured as if it were a novel, but in which everything is true. (Le Parisien)

A heartfelt story . . . at once horrifying and comforting (Le Soir)

Deeply moving. . . this is a tale of transformation, of a man just like you and me. (Journal du Dimanche)

With skill and composure that marks it as a work of literature rather than a journalistic report, Emma-Jane Kirby explores closely the innermost upheaval of one human being faced with the tragedy of another: the cause of such suffering is born of guilt, but also of a sense of humanity born of uncontrollable empathy. (La Croix)

A shock to the system, it forces us to think. . . the optician is an ordinary man, no better no worse than us. (France 2)

About the Author

Emma-Jane Kirby is a broadcast journalist who has reported extensively on international affairs, from Brussels to Afghanistan. She won the Bayeux-Calvados Award for War Correspondents for her report 'The Optician of Lampedusa', on which this book is based.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Allen Lane (29 Sept. 2016)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 128 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0241295289
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0241295281
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 14.4 x 1.3 x 22.3 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 562,886 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 735 in Population & Demography
- 48,697 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer reviews:
129 ratings

Customer reviews

5 star		64%
4 star		21%
3 star		9%
2 star		3%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from United Kingdom

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mhcartwright

Should be read by everyone.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 3 August 2022

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This book gives an honest and harrowing, but unsentimental account of the experiences of some refugees whose boat capsizes, and also of their rescuers. Based on personal experience but presented in novel form, it is profoundly moving and I wept my way through the second half, but was glad that I read it for its insight and humanity. Anyone who has little time for refugees and asylum seekers may be surprised by the positive consequences which in this case followed a rescue. Emma Jane Kirby has written a splendid account.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

A slender volume, with far more inside than appears at first.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 6 December 2016

Verified Purchase

This was our Book Club choice - the member who selected it said we wouldn't want to read it but we certainly should do so.

I found the format, that of a good quality hard back book, with appropriate art work, showing a series of breaking waves; and who would want to be trying to survive them - to be unusually retro and serious. Good to be holding a proper volume, and to be able to take it all in within the space of a few hours. I liked the new angle of presenting as 'faction', such an important, moving story of a modern day Samaritan, eight of them in fact, who did not 'cross to the other side'. I could relate to their road to Damascus moments, shared as one, without any false notes, they worked as a team and later all suffered the same Post Traumatic Stress, their own lives, values, thoughts, preoccupations, changed forever.

Humans in distress are not sanitised, these unfortunates were already bereaved, battered, slippery with diesel oil, hurt, sick and as ashamed of their nakedness as Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. I can't seem to stop the flow of biblical references in this review - for good reason - this is a parable and one we cannot ignore. These people could be us they feel as we do, love for family and friends, aspirations for a better future, they are not a lesser kind of human. Their exquisite sensitivity is demonstrated by the gift they gave to their rescuers - a drawing of hand reaching to hand into the waves...

4 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Harrowing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 20 September 2021

Verified Purchase

I often read books about issues that are going on in the world because I feel its important that we all know what is happening around the world but feel that this is one of the most harrowing. It is expertly written and really has you feeling like you are there on the boat with them. You cannot fail to be moved by the plight of these people and angered by the inaction of governments that make show of helping but really do precious little. I feel this is an important read for everyone.

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StuartA

Important story but terrible writing style

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 2 December 2016

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Search the Internet for written and radio reports by Kirby on this story: they are excellent and you'll understand all you need to know from them. She is clearly a very good journalist. What I feel she can’t do is write a novel. For me, the style is so clunky, full of banal, overenthusiastic writerly clichés, like someone who’s barely started an evening class on creative writing, that the book very quickly became almost unreadable. Huffing and puffing—my wife kept asking why I didn’t just give up on it—I speed read to the end. Presenting the story in this way doesn’t do anything to enhance the telling, it rather detracts from what is an amazing insight into one aspect of the global migration crisis. She’d have done better to have written it up as an extended piece of journalism with real quotes and perhaps pad it out with the background of the individuals saved. This is the most disappointed I’ve been in a book for a long time and, for that, I give it two stars. Do search for her original journalistic material on this subject but avoid the book. In contrast, my favourite book of the year is another tale of migration, The Lightless Sky: An Afghan Refugee Boy's Journey of Escape to a New Life in Britain by Gulwali Passarlay with Nadine Ghouri.

8 people found this helpful

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Ben Frank

A lesson in humanity and realisation.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 12 September 2017

Verified Purchase

I've just spent 6 weeks working on Lampedusa in connection with the immigration. I visited the harbour, the abandoned boats, the airport hanger, the graves in the cemetery and the opticians shop in Via Roma so can put the story very much into context. What I can't do is feel first hand the emotion, the helplessness frustration at the politics and love for mankind which is so strongly and clearly conveyed in this book. The gentle, straight forward prose tell the story from the heart. Just a few of the phrases used were very english given that was an Italian telling his story but that's ok really. Compulsory reading for any visitor to the remarkable island of Lampedusa.

One person found this helpful

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Lesley

Would you do the same?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 6 April 2017

Verified Purchase

An interesting book which deals with a topic which is currently very much in the news. It focuses on an ordinary group of friends who do an extraordinary thing and the emotional consequences of that action. It makes one think about ones own views on this very difficult dilemma.

One person found this helpful

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Robert

Makes the migrant crisis real

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 14 December 2016

Verified Purchase

How do you react to news about migrants suffering while they struggle to get to Europe? This book brings tears as it describes how a group of friends reacts when confronted directly with their suffering. Simply written and powerful.

2 people found this helpful

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Mrs. P. R. Guegan

A life changing. Story that will touch your heart!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 4 February 2017

Verified Purchase

If like me you have been touched by the Refugee Crisis - then read this - it will touch your heart! A group of friends enjoying a couple of days together on a small cruiser off the cost in the Med are suddenly caught up in this human tragedy and it changed their lives in a few short hours!

One person found this helpful

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The Optician of Lampedusa Hardcover – 29 Sept. 2016

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