"My father bought me from the council for 365 francs," recalls the
narrator in Monica Cantieni's novel The Encyclopaedia of Good
Reasons. She's a young girl, an immigrant to Switzerland whose
adoption is yet to be finalized. When she finally moves into her
new home with her new family, she recounts her days in the
orphanage and how starkly different her life is now. Her new
community speaks German, a language foreign to her, and she
collects words and phrases in matchboxes. Though her relationship
with her adoptive parents is strained, she bonds with her adoptive
grandfather Tat, and together they create the eponymous
"Encyclopaedia of Good Reasons." Set in the time of the crucial
1970 Swiss referendum on immigration, Monica Cantieni introduces us
to a host of colorful characters who struggle to make Switzerland
their home: Eli, the Spanish bricklayer; Toni, the Italian factory
worker with movie star looks; Madame Jelisaweta, the Yugoslav
hairdresser; and Milena, the mysterious girl in the wardrobe. This
is a book with a very warm heart, and rarely has a young girl's
narrative been at once so uproariously hilarious and so deeply
moving.
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