Letters from an Immigrant Teenager

This unique collection of letters written by Varpu Lindstrom in Canada to her friend Kaisa Lindberg in Finland between 1963 and 1965 chronicles the immigration experience from the perspective of a teenage girl. The unedited and unaltered letters are drenched in raw emotion and reflect in the most honest way the difficulties plaguing a young immigrant s life. The letters, which are rendered in the original Finnish as well as in English translation, exude constant longing for Finland, loneliness and linguistic isolation, and the universal, existential anguish of a young teenager. It becomes clear that Kaisa would come to represent Finland and everything that Varpu had left behind when she was thrust into an alien environment that she often found confusing and isolating she did not at the time of arrival speak any English.