Harun and the Sea of ​​Stories

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Haroun and the Sea of Stories ( Haroun and the Sea of Stories ) is a children's and youth book by Salman Rushdie , first published in 1990 .

action

Harun lives in the country of Aliphbay as the son of the storyteller Raschid Khalifa. However, when his wife Soraya leaves him, he loses the gift of storytelling. When he travels with his father to a gig, at which it is to help a corrupt local politician in the election campaign, remarked Harun that the ability of his father from stories faucet stems, comes from the Rashid narrative water. He meets a water djinn who wants to turn off the tap, steals the wrench he needs and forces him to bring his father and Kahani to the moon. The moon consists largely of the eponymous sea of ​​stories and is divided into a hemisphere that is always inclined towards the sun and one that is always dark. On the light side is Gup City, where everyone is talkative and full of joy, on the dark side is the kingdom of Chup, which is ruled by the evil cult master Khattam-shud. He kidnapped the Princess of Gup and poisoned the sea of ​​stories to end all telling forever. Harun and his soon-to-be-emerged father help the residents of Gup on their campaign against Chup. With the help of a magic potion that makes wishes come true, Harun succeeds in restoring the change of times of day on the whole moon. When the sun rises over Chup, Khattam-shud's palace and the shadow ship, with which he wanted to close the sources of the Sea of ​​Tales forever, melt. The Chupwalas rise against him, Khattam-shud is slain by the collapsing idol statue of Silence that he had erected. As a thank you, Harun asks the ruler of Gup for a happy ending for his world too. Then he wakes up, it all seems like a dream. But during his campaign appearance, his father tells the story of Harun and the sea of ​​stories . The audience sees it as an allegory of the corrupt politician and denies him allegiance . Without payment, but satisfied, father and son return home and find Soraya there, who has returned to them.

Remarks

Salman Rushdie wrote the story in exile. The Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini had previously accused him of blasphemy and sentenced him to death on the basis of the previous work The Satanic Verses .

In the modern fairy tale, the author reflected on his own situation, as a refugee, far from his previous life and his previous source of inspiration, he felt for a long time as if his own narrative had dried up.

Nevertheless, it is not a sad one, but a colored book with a happy ending.

The author dedicated the book to his son Zafar, from whom he had to part on the run.

Harun and the Sea of ​​History is about the power of literature and makes it real for the main character. In this it resembles works like The Neverending Story , Inkheart , The Shadow of the Wind and The City of Dreaming Books .