International Authors YA Literature

*Alvarez, Julia. How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents. (1992)—In the 1960s, political tension forces the García family away from Santo Domingo and towards the Bronx. The sisters all hit their strides in America, adapting and thriving despite cultural differences, language barriers, and prejudice. But Mami and Papi are more traditional, and they have far more difficulty adjusting to their new country. Making matters worse, the girls—frequently embarrassed by their parents—find ways to rebel against them. (Dominican Republic)

*Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. (2007)—Beah tells the story of how, at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. (Sierre Leone)

*Cofer, Judith Ortiz. An Island like You: Stories of the Barrio. (1996)—Twelve stories about young people caught between their Puerto Rican heritage and their American surroundings. (Puerto Rico)

*Compestine, Ying Chang. Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party. (2007)—Starting in 1972 when she is nine years old, Ling, the daughter of two doctors, struggles to make sense of the communists' Cultural Revolution, which empties stores of food, homes of appliances deemed "bourgeois," and people of laughter. (China)

Desai Hidier, Tanuja. Born Confused. (2002)—Seventeen-year-old Dimple, whose family is from India, discovers that she is not Indian enough for the Indians and not American enough for the Americans, as she sees her hypnotically beautiful, manipulative best friend taking possession of both her heritage and the boy she likes. (India)

*Dowd, Siobhan. A Swift Pure Cry. (2007)—Coolbar, Ireland, is a village of secrets and Shell, caretaker to her younger brother and sister after the death of their mother and with the absence of their father, is not about to reveal hers until suspicion falls on the wrong person. (Ireland)

*Emecheta, Buchi. The Bride Price. (2002)—A story about a Nigerian girl who is allowed to finish her education because a diploma will enhance her bride price, who then rebels against traditional marriage customs. (Nigeria)

Gipi. Notes for a War Story. (2007)—Three young drifters make their way across the war-torn landscape of an unnamed Balkan country. Told from the point of view of protagonist Giuliano, the narrative traces his path as he is forced to go through the peripheral results of war. (Europe)

Lat. Town Boy. (2007)—This sequel to Kampung Boy (2006) takes up the Malaysian cartoonist’s memoir in 1960 when he arrives in Ipoh to continue his education at a boarding school. Ipoh is a multicultural place and Lat’s friends include Indians, Chinese, and other South Asians. (Malaysia)

*Martinez, Victor. Parrot in the Oven. (1998)—Manny relates his coming of age experiences as a member of a poor Mexican American family in which the alcoholic father only adds to everyone's struggle. (Hispanic Americans)

*Mori, Kyoko. Shizuko’s Daughter. (1993)—After her mother's suicide when she is twelve years old, Yuki spends years living with her distant father and his resentful new wife, cut off from her mother's family, and relying on her own inner strength to cope with the tragedy. (Japan)

*Na, An. A Step from Heaven. (2002)—Told through the eyes of Young Ju, this is the story of a Korean family that immigrates to California in search of a better life, only to find that the American Dream is harder to achieve than they thought. (Korea)

*Nafisi, Azar. Reading Lolita in Tehran. (2003)—In 1995, after resigning from her job as a professor at a university in Tehran due to repressive policies, Azar Nafisi invited seven of her best female students to attend a weekly study of great Western literature in her home. (Iran)

Napoli, Donna Jo. Bound. (2004)—In a novel based on Chinese Cinderella tales, fourteen-year-old stepchild Xing-Xing endures a life of neglect and servitude, as her stepmother cruelly mutilates her own child's feet so that she alone might marry well. (China)

*Nye. Naomi. Habibi. (1999)—When fourteen-year-old Liyanne Abboud, her younger brother, and her parents move from St. Louis to a new home between Jerusalem and the Palestinian village where her father was born, they face many changes and must deal with the tensions between Jews and Palestinians. (Arab-American)

Osa, Nancy. Cuba 15. (2003)—Violet Paz, a Chicago high school student, reluctantly prepares for her upcoming “quince,” a Spanish nickname for the celebration of a Hispanic girl’s fifteenth birthday. (Cuban-American)

*Rana, Indi. The Roller Birds of Rampir. (1993)—An Indian teenager raised in England returns to India to find her identify. (India)

*Santiago, Esmeralda. When I Was Puerto Rican. (1994)—Santiago’s memoir recounts her childooh in rural Puerto Rico and her teenage years in New York City. (Puerto Rico)

*Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood. (2003)—Marji tells of her life in Iran from the age of 10, when the Islamic revolution of 1979 reintroduced a religious state, through the age of 14 when he Iran-Iraq forced her parents to send her to Europe for safety. (Iran)

Sheth, Kashmira. Keeping Corner. (2007)—In India in the 1940s, thirteen-year-old Leela's happy, spoiled childhood ends when her husband since age nine, whom she barely knows, dies, leaving her a widow whose only hope of happiness could come from Mahatma Ghandi's social and political reforms. (India)

*Sis, Peter. The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain. (2007)—Powerful account of his childhood in Cold War-era Prague. (Czechoslovakia)

*Staples, Suzanne Fisher. Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind. (2003)—When eleven-year old Shabanu, the daughter of a nomad in the Cholistan Desert of present-day Pakistan, is pledged in marriage to an older man whose money will bring prestige to the family, she must either accept the decision, as is the custom, or risk the consequences of defying her father's wishes. (Pakistan)

Triana, Gaby. Cubanita. (2005)—Seventeen-year-old Isabel, eager to leave Miami to attend the University of Michigan and escape her overprotective Cuban mother, learns some truths about her family's past and makes important decisions about the type of person she wants to be. (Cuba)

*Vijayaraghavan, Vineeta. Motherland. (2001)—An American teenager spends the summer with her relatives in southern India and gains new insight into her past, her family and her heritage. (India)

Yan, Ma. The Diary of Ma Ya: The Struggles and Hopes of a Chinese Schoolgirl. (2005)—Ma Yan's diary chronicles her struggle to escape the desperate poverty in rural China through education. But, with so little money to pay the fees, she must be persistent and resourceful. (China)

*Denotes Belmont-owned