The Frozen Waterfall
Author: Gaye Hicyilmaz
Editor: Farrar Straus & Giroux (J)
Year: 1994
Hicyilmaz (Against the Storm) again expresses the hardships of contemporary immigrants; while her first novel focused on the plight of refugees, this second, equally provocative saga relates a family's adjustment to a new country. Twelve-year-old Selda has mixed feelings about leaving Turkey with her mother and older sisters to join her father and brothers in Switzerland. Unlike her sisters, she has great difficulty overcoming the language barrier and making friends with her classmates. But Selda's problems are small compared with those of Ferhat and his father, Turkish farmhands who have entered the country illegally. This coming-of-age story, which celebrates Selda's courage and determination to help a boy worse off than herself, sharply contrasts Middle Eastern and Western cultures, at the same time showing the universality of adolescent concerns. Hearts will go out to the heroine as she struggles to find a niche for herself; her experiences of cruelty and compassion in a new land will leave a lasting impression on readers.
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