50books_poc | 2. Ett öga rött, by Jonas Hassen Khemiri

(The first book I read for this challenge was Kindred.)

Ett öga rött (One Eye Red) by Jonas Hassen Khemiri is a brilliant book. It's the diary of fifteen year old Tunisian immigrant Halim, written in a carefully broken Swedish.

When his mother died, Halim's father decided to move from one of the immigrant suburbs into central Stockholm, so Halim can get a better education and better chances in life. Halim is bristling with teenage anger and trying to find his identity.

One of the reasons I loved this book is that Halim really reads like a teenager (and a very unreliable narrator, at that). He knows so little, and thinks he knows it all. When he falls in love, it's all-consuming. When she chooses another, all women are lying whores. He's objecting to The Integration Plan by random vandalism, and it makes sense to him. His mind is not a pretty place, and his issues with sexism and racism are very obvious. (Women are called whores and cunts, and he uses racial insults against East Europeans, Yugoslavians, Iranians and Asians.)

If you don't have a problem with that, I'd recommend this book. It's available in Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Russian, Serbian and German. (Translation rights to English are sold, but I can't find an actual translation.)