COLD WHITE SUN

COLD WHITE SUN, a stranger-than-fiction story based on the real-life experiences of a young boy who was smuggled out of Ethiopia amid political unrest to start a new life in Canada.

Tesfaye lives behind the safe walls of his family's compound in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. When rebel forces take over the capital, life becomes more complicated -- and in peril. Tesfaye is put in the care of a human smuggler and embarks on an uncertain, confusing and terrifying journey through Kenya, Europe and finally to Canada, where he is put on a Greyhound bus with ten dollars in his pocket.

And so begins his new life in North America, sheltered for a while by fellow expats, threatened by the authorities, shunted from a group home to foster care. But through it all he is plagued by confusion and grief, wondering whether he will ever know what has happened to the family he left behind.

Tesfaye's story is true, told by journalist, literacy advocate and author Sue Farrell Holler after hundreds of hours of research and interviews with the real "Tesfaye." The novel has the full support and endorsement of the real-life Tesfaye, although he cannot be identified because his family is still in Ethiopia where the political situation remains unstable. Tesfaye has provided a statement that serves as the novel's frontispiece.