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Jonah
Nasir is an elderly man who lives at the detention center with a few younger family members. He and Subhi are good friends, as Nasir tells good stories and has taught Subhi how to create and use “Pebbles of Happy.” To create one, a person holds a special pebble and comes up with the happiest thing they can think of. Later, when a person holds that specific pebble, they can recall that memory. Nasir’s health has been declining for a while by the start of the novel, and he dies suddenly one day. His death makes Subhi extremely sad, as Nasir never got to leave the detention center—and Nasir was one of the only people who didn’t call Subhi “Aussie Boy.”
Nasir Quotes in The Bone Sparrow
The The Bone Sparrow quotes below are all either spoken by Nasir or refer to Nasir. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 13 Quotes
Nasir says he doesn’t mind so much about his leg. He says it is worse for people like Fara, who is deaf and had her hearing aid taken, so that now she can’t hear the memories people tell each other to keep themselves alive in here. Or the ones like Remi, who needs medicine every day and had that taken away by the Jackets, and even the letter from his doctor was destroyed. Remi has these fits and headaches that make him scream so hard it cuts through your thinking. He says all he needs is his medicine. ‘I thought you would help me.’ He says that over and over again. I don’t know who he’s talking to, though.
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Chapter 18 Quotes
I never used to know what Queeny meant when she said that, about being invisible. But then I think of Eli and I think of Nasir, and I think of the different I feel when Jimmie is here. Like someone is really seeing me, really listening. I haven’t felt like that before. So when Queeny asks me if I understand, I do. And I wonder if maybe that’s how everyone is feeling. I wonder if maybe that’s the sad angry sick that’s all over the place and funking up the air.
And I wish I didn’t understand, because understanding doesn’t fix it. Understanding just makes it worse.
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Nasir Character Timeline in The Bone Sparrow
The timeline below shows where the character Nasir appears in The Bone Sparrow. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 13
...be busy or distracted. Subhi tries to entertain himself for a while, and then elderly Nasir calls him over. Nasir has refugee status—he can’t return to where he came from—but he...
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Nasir only has one leg; the Jackets took away his prosthetic leg when he arrived. Still,...
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Subhi then tells Nasir about Eli moving to Alpha. After a while, Nasir starts to “smudg[e] up,” so Subhi...
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Chapter 17
Nasir died earlier. Subhi is sitting in the corner, waiting for Jimmie and thinking about it....
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Chapter 28
...Nights to read to the other kids and then disappears. Seeing the boy who took Nasir’s bed staring at the book, Subhi asks if he can read. He gives the boy...
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