An eye for an eye. It's very simple. You choose your homeland like a
hyena picking and choosing where he steals his next meal from.
Scavenger. Yes you grovel to the feet of Mengistu and when his people
spit at you and kick you from the bowl you scuttle across the border.
Scavenger.
As a violent civil war rages back home in Ethiopia, teenager Alem and
his father are in a bed and breakfast in Berkshire. It's his best
holiday ever. The next morning his father is gone and has left a note
explaining that he and his mother want to protect Alem from the war.
This strange grey country of England is now his home.
On his own, and in the hands of the social services and the Refugee
Council, Alem lives from letter to letter, waiting to hear something
from his father. Then he meets car-obsessed Mustapha, the lovely
'out-of-your-league' Ruth and dangerous Sweeney - three unexpected
allies who spur him on in his fight to be seen as more than just the
Refugee Boy.
Lemn Sissay's remarkable stage adaptation of Benjamin Zephaniah's
bestselling novel is published here in the Methuen Drama Student Edition
series, featuring commentary & notes by Professor Lynette Goddard (Royal
Holloway, University of London, UK) that help the student unpack the
play's themes, language, structure and production history to date.
