The haunting story of a family of dreamers and tale-tellers looking for home in an unwelcoming world. This exquisite and unusual magic realist debut, told in intensely lyrical prose by an award winning author, traces one girl’s migration from war to peace, loss to loss, home to home.
Firuzeh and her brother Nour are children of fire, born in an Afghanistan fractured by war. When their parents, their Atay and Abay, decide to leave, they spin fairy tales of their destination, the mythical land and opportunities of Australia.
As the family journeys from Pakistan to Indonesia to Nauru, heading toward a hope of home, they must rely on fragile and temporary shelters, strangers both mercenary and kind, and friends who vanish as quickly as they’re found.
When they arrive in Australia, what seemed like a stable shore gives way to treacherous currents. Neighbors, classmates, and the government seek their own ends, indifferent to the family’s fate. For Firuzeh, her fantasy worlds provide some relief, but as her family and home splinter, she must surface from these imaginings and find a new way.
Genre: Fantasy
Firuzeh and her brother Nour are children of fire, born in an Afghanistan fractured by war. When their parents, their Atay and Abay, decide to leave, they spin fairy tales of their destination, the mythical land and opportunities of Australia.
As the family journeys from Pakistan to Indonesia to Nauru, heading toward a hope of home, they must rely on fragile and temporary shelters, strangers both mercenary and kind, and friends who vanish as quickly as they’re found.
When they arrive in Australia, what seemed like a stable shore gives way to treacherous currents. Neighbors, classmates, and the government seek their own ends, indifferent to the family’s fate. For Firuzeh, her fantasy worlds provide some relief, but as her family and home splinter, she must surface from these imaginings and find a new way.
Genre: Fantasy
Praise for this book
"An incredibly accomplished debut novel, a necessary and important tale of empathy and imagination and hope." - Matt Bell
"It is so important, it is so beautiful, and I feel like maybe if everyone read it the world would be a slightly less terrible place." - Amal El-Mohtar
"An extraordinary achievement - original in voice, powerful in material, a book of brutal beauty and unflinching compassion. May it be noticed and read and praised and believed." - Karen Joy Fowler
"E. Lily Yu's finely honed prose and her child narrator allow for flashes of warmth and beauty between the shocks and sorrows, the terrors and humiliations." - Margo Lanagan
"A heartbreaking celebration of the necessity of joy. A soul-searing tale of homecoming, home-becoming, home-conjuring. By holding up the jagged beauty of faith against despair, E. Lily Yu is the brilliant voice of conscience our age needs." - Ken Liu
"On Fragile Waves confirms that E. Lily Yu is a prodigy. Every line a gemstone, every page a calligram." - Usman T Malik
"A stunning heartbreaker. The prose is as sharp and beautiful as the story it tells . . . bringing into painful beautiful focus all the ways the world is horrible, and all the ways the world is magic." - Sam J Miller
"Beautifully written, absorbing, powerful.... This should win awards when it comes out next year. I think Yu is doing some of the most exciting things in genre." - Jo Walton
"It is so important, it is so beautiful, and I feel like maybe if everyone read it the world would be a slightly less terrible place." - Amal El-Mohtar
"An extraordinary achievement - original in voice, powerful in material, a book of brutal beauty and unflinching compassion. May it be noticed and read and praised and believed." - Karen Joy Fowler
"E. Lily Yu's finely honed prose and her child narrator allow for flashes of warmth and beauty between the shocks and sorrows, the terrors and humiliations." - Margo Lanagan
"A heartbreaking celebration of the necessity of joy. A soul-searing tale of homecoming, home-becoming, home-conjuring. By holding up the jagged beauty of faith against despair, E. Lily Yu is the brilliant voice of conscience our age needs." - Ken Liu
"On Fragile Waves confirms that E. Lily Yu is a prodigy. Every line a gemstone, every page a calligram." - Usman T Malik
"A stunning heartbreaker. The prose is as sharp and beautiful as the story it tells . . . bringing into painful beautiful focus all the ways the world is horrible, and all the ways the world is magic." - Sam J Miller
"Beautifully written, absorbing, powerful.... This should win awards when it comes out next year. I think Yu is doing some of the most exciting things in genre." - Jo Walton
Visitors also looked at these books
Used availability for E Lily Yu's On Fragile Waves