Paradise

In this ingenious satire, Solita, the not quite ten-year-old daughter of refugees from Franco's Spain, is whisked from the urban ghetto of Galmeda to El Topaz, the lush hacienda of a wealthy eccentric, which her mother assures her will be paradise. But behind its beautiful facade, El Topaz is a quagmire of social subterfuge, from its politicking adults to its spiteful children, and Solita finds herself alone in a glittery world where "you couldn't trust anything. Or anybody. You had to navigate completely on your own." In Paradise, "Ms. Castedo has brought off, with acid wit, the far from easy task of revealing arrogance, folly, injustice and debauchery through the eyes of an observer who does not know what those qualities are." (The Atlantic)