Soraya the Storyteller

Soraya is an 11-year-old asylum seeker from Afghanistan living under the shadow of a temporary protection visa. Soraya and her family begin a new life in a South Australian town. She attends school for the first time, though she had been taught at home. She studies hard so she’ll be put in a higher class and be able to stay in Australia, and she begins to make friends, not just at school but with the ‘possum man’, who lives in her street. Soraya remembers how her older sister and brother died in Kabul, and how her favourite brother, Qamar, was taken by the Taliban to fight. Her father died in prison. She remembers some of the journey to Australia and the year in the detention centre.

Another Afghan family lend Soraya’s family their grandmother Khala, since Soraya’s mother isn’t coping, and Khala tells Afghan folk stories each night. Soraya begins to write her own stories and Khala tells her they will keep her alive, like Scheherezade’s. Soraya dreams of a black horse that flies, the ebony horse of the Arabian Nights. It’s a story a father told when she was little and she asks Khala to tell it to her now. It becomes part of a story she writes for a competition, but a relief teacher doesn’t submit it because she thinks an ESL student wouldn’t be able to write well enough to win. This is the one thing that tips Soraya over the edge to face her grief, to talk, and to cry for her family. Soraya’s teacher shows her story to an author who wants to use it in a publication of children’s refugee stories.

Ages 9-13.