An unflinching look at ten young lives suspended outside of time--and
bravely proceeding anyway--inside the Katsikas refugee camp in Greece.
Every war, famine, and flood spits out survivors.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) cites an
unprecedented 79.5 million forcibly displaced people on the planet
today. In 2018, Dina Nayeri--a former refugee herself and the daughter
of a refugee--invited documentary photographer Anna Bosch Miralpeix to
accompany her to Katsikas, a refugee camp outside Ioannina, Greece, to
record the hopes and struggles of ten young Farsi-speaking refugees from
Iran and Afghanistan. "I wanted to play with them, to enter their
imagined worlds, to see the landscape inside their minds," she says.
Ranging in age from five to seventeen, the children live in partitioned
shipping-crate homes crowded on a field below a mountain. Battling a
dreary monster that wants to rob them of their purpose, dignity, and
identity, each survives in his or her own special way.
The Waiting Place is an unflinching look at ten young lives suspended
outside of time--and bravely proceeding anyway. Each lyrical passage
leads the reader from one story to the next, revealing the dreams,
ambitions, and personalities of each displaced child. The stories are
punctuated by intimate photographs, followed by the author's reflections
on life in a refugee camp. Locking the global refugee crisis sharply in
focus, The Waiting Place is an urgent call to change what we teach
young people about the nature of home and safety.
