Birukti Tsige (YA Contemporary)
Author: Birukti Tsige (@BiruktiWrites)
Age Range: Young Adult
Genre: Contemporary
Agent: Elle Thompson & Uwe Stender, Triada US Literary Agency
The Query Letter:
Dear Dr. Uwe Stender,
Sixteen-year-old Nazrawit agreed to pay the “American Tax” when she left Ethiopia but it’s not long before she starts regretting it. The Tax includes (but is not limited to) not being able to eat “ethnic” food in the school cafeteria, practicing enunciating useless words like “colonel” and “rural”, and smiling even when you know you’re being talked down to by the housing people. When she sees her childhood best friend, Melak—or Malik as he goes by now—in her new high school, she thinks it’s fate.
His hair, his friends, his accent...it’s all strange to her. It doesn't take her long to realize he's not the boy she used to love, but when her father loses his job, she’s forced to work with Melak at the Ethiopian restaurant in town. She’s too busy trying to hide the spice smells on her clothes, dealing with a rocky relationship with her schizophrenic older brother, and keeping her parents from finding out that she’s performing a poem about their family secret. She doesn’t need an Americanized and watered-down version of the boy she once loved in the mix. Even if he makes her heart pitter-patter. Even if his throw-caution-out-the-window nature dares her to step out into the spotlight.
When there’s an altercation with her brother at her school, she’s forced to decide whether to continue staying silent and become complicit in the injustice or finally speak up and betray her family.
I’m querying my #OwnVoices YA coming-of-age novel YOU LOST YOUR ACCENT, a stand-alone novel with series potential. The story is complete at 73,000 words and is based on my experience of immigration, family illness, and activism. With the charming romance of TO ALL THE BOYS I’VE LOVED BEFORE, the immigrant experience of AMERICAN STREET and the community activism of THE HATE U GIVE, the novel is a coming of age story in a world that's unfamiliar, exploring a love story that struggles to survive in new soil.
Thank you for your consideration.