UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Khaled Hosseini at a refugee camp in Uganda. Pic/Jordi Matas, UNHCR

Four minutes was all Khaled Hosseini had to tell the story, Sea Prayer, when he was asked to speak at a private fundraiser to benefit refugees, back in March. The story is written in the form of an imagined letter, from a Syrian father to his son, who is lying asleep on his lap the night before the sea crossing to Europe. Hosseini, Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), wrote it to commemorate the second anniversary of three-year old Syrian boy Alan Kurdi's death after he drowned in the Mediterranean Sea while attempting to reach Greece.