Peter Pan is a character in a series of plays, stories, and novels created by early 20th-century Scottish writer J. M. Barrie and made most famous by a 1953 Disney animated film adaptation. The title of Barrie’s 1904 play, Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, evokes the character’s defining trait: He is a boy who would rather exist in a fantasy world of adventure. The play’s other major characters, the Darling siblings, hail from the “real world” of turn-of-the-century London but visit Peter Pan in the magical realm of Neverland. The tension between childhood innocence and societal expectation is thus central to the play, although Neverland itself is not without its darker side.

El Akkad has stated in interviews that many of the themes, characters, and other details of What Strange Paradise are allusions to Peter Pan. This literary connection situates El Akkad’s novel in the framework of an immensely popular and culturally significant piece of literature in Western culture and invites audiences to see the story of Peter Pan in a new light. By doing so, El Akkad carves space for silenced voices, such as those of immigrants, within Western literature, where they have traditionally been silenced or ignored.