The Gift of Sacrifice

The Gift of Sacrifice tells the story of Soad, a young Bangladeshi boy who migrates from his home to Rome, where he dreams of being able to make enough money to support his poor family back in Bangladesh. He arrives early in the summer and quickly establishes himself as a street seller at a beach near Rome. There he quickly falls in with a group of other Bangladeshi boys who are also street sellers and who are also working to send money back to their families in Bangladesh. They are able to do reasonably well with their business with the tourists. But when Fall comes, and the Romans retreat back to their city, Soad follows his friends back to Rome, where street selling is much more restricted and often illegal. Soad faces a new series of challenges, not only in making enough money to support his family and himself, but also with regard to his relations with his family and his new friends in Rome. This is a story that explores in some depth the challenges faced by young immigrants who discover that the land of their dreams is not what they expected.