Haroun Aani Goshtincha Samudra

There was an extremely sad city. The saddest city in the world. It was so overwhelmed by sorrow that it could not even remember its own name. Rashid, a professional storyteller, lived in this city with his son, Haroun.

Rashid was the Badshah of Bakwas—the king of nonsense—and a river of imagination. He told extraordinary stories, a new one every time. He never repeated an old story. He had not just one or two, but hundreds of stories to offer you: hilarious stories and heartbreaking ones, tumbling one after another like balls tossed into the air and caught all at once. His stories had magic and love, princesses, wicked uncles and uncles by marriage, plump aunts, and moustachioed villains wearing bright yellow checked trousers. They even contained a dozen catchy tunes that you would find yourself humming without a second thought.

But one day, things began to go wrong—terribly wrong. Rashid’s wife left him. And when Rashid opened his mouth to tell a story, instead of a tale, all that came out was a horrifying shriek. The Badshah of Bakwas had lost his gift for storytelling. Something terrible had happened, but he had no idea what it was. Somewhere, someone was poisoning the very source of stories.

The sworn enemy of Khatam-Shud language, the Prince of Silence—the rival of speech itself—was secretly plotting to pollute the great ocean of stories.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories is an adventure about Haroun and the Sea of Stories. It is the story of a father and son, Abbu and beta—Rashid and Haroun. It tells of Haroun’s efforts to restore his father’s storytelling gift and rescue him from despair.

The adventure features a mad bus driver, a water genie—uff!—a floating gardener, and seventeen-mouthed fish with mouths chattering all over their bodies. There is a wonderful city of Gup, where it is always daylight, and the terrifying city of Chup, where darkness reigns forever. And most importantly, there is Pangungsa, something incredibly complicated and difficult to explain!