Glorıa Gülay baltalı

Literature & Fiction

Harmony of Colors

Fatih’s life isn’t easy: his family just moved to a new country a few weeks ago and he is a new student in school. More than anything, he dreams of playing and making friends, but he is still learning English and how to speak with other kids in this language and returns home every day lonely and silent to his worried parents. One day after school he sees the only other silent student in the class, Fiona, speaking to her mom. Surprised, he learns that Fiona speaks only when she chooses to! Yet when the following day the art teacher Ms. Garcia appears with art materials that are also “new” – that is, to everyone except for Fatih, who has seen and used them once in the country of his birth, Turkey – the newcomer Fatih and the selectively speaking Fiona are given the perfect chance to test the boundaries of their language. Can Fatih bridge the gap between the languages of America and Turkey? Can Fiona learn to overcome her speech anxiety? Or will a class accident that jeopardizes their class standing to silence them more? All this and more in the Turkish-American Gloria Gülay’s sensitive new story “Harmony of Colors,” a lively tutorial on a cherished, centuries-old Turkish art form and a meaningful account of what it means to speak and have our voices heard.