Fiktions-essay ( )

Danish writer Janne Teller blew me away with ”Nothing” a few years ago, and didn’t disapppoint with this. A gorgeous little book, designed to look like a passport, telling a very simple, effective story in second person: a nationalist government with dreams of rebuilding the “Great Sweden” from glory days past comes to power, gradually dismantling democracy. Danes, Finns and Norwegians living in Sweden form guerilla groups. Snipers start to man the high-rises. Ethnic Swedes form militias. And you and your family manage to get out in hopes of a better life, in peaceful Egypt. But life isn’t easy there either. A long wait to get asylum ensues (is it really not safe for you in Sweden? After all, isn’t your brother an officer in a pro-government militia?). The Danes in the other part of the camp hate you. And Scandinavians have a bad reputation in Egypt, as being undisciplined heathens, a possible threat to Egyptian culture.

Turning the perspective around is a simple tool, but works really well. It creates a fresh angle on racism, culture relativism and the concept of “home” and gets you thinking. Clocking in at under 60 pages, this is the kind of book you want to put in the hands of every twelve year old out there. ( )