The Sun on My Face

Ibrahim Masri, a recent Dean’s List graduate of Queen’s College lives with his family while he searches for work. He is about to give up when he meets a man in distress on the streets of Manhattan and comes to his aid. The man, struggling on crutches, has dropped his briefcase and its contents all over the street. Ibrahim rushes to his aid and the next 20 minutes change their lives in unexpected ways. The Masri family, one of the lucky ones to escape a war without end, has settled in Queen’s, New York. Grandfather Masri, once a brilliant Professor at Baghdad University was also a prisoner of Saddam’s for 8 years. His ordeal tested his courage and faith and taught him to cherish the smallest things in life. His intellectual and emotional strength provides hope and humor to a family as they struggle to belong in a new and at times, unwelcoming world. Ibrahim’s journey is the journey of a young man who wants to make his mother proud and get on with life. It’s also the compelling story of the Masri family and other families just like them. Strangers in a new land, this is a story of courage, love, blind faith and sometimes, serendipitous good fortune that can swoop down and change everything.