I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain

The classic image of a Wild West cowboy on his faithful horse kept popping in my head while I was reading Bruce Omar Yates’ first novel The Muslim Cowboy. The author, born in London to an Indian mother and an English father, grew up in the south of France before returning to London to study Literature and Film at King’s College London. He was principal songwriter in the rock groups Famy and Los Porcos. But here Bruce Omar Yates finds himself in the Middle East telling a tale of the aftermath of the Iraqi war, as far from my usual Nordic climates as imaginable.

Hypnotic flowing prose, expanse of desert plains in the dangerous post-war atmosphere, travelling alone, fearlessness, following the nature’s universal clock. Alas, this cowboy seems different: clad in double denim, sporting suitable hat, smoking a vape and carrying minimal number of earthly possessions, he indeed lacked name until he was given one: ‘the American’. His loyal steed in contrast was in fact a nonchalant spitting camel called Hosti, constant and unremitting and moaning, but used to the burning sand and strong winds. Together the man and the animal cross vast spaces in search of safety. Yet this safety, this idealistic mental and physical space is impossible to locate, amid the ruins and moral destruction.

The cowboy avoids human contact, hides from any possible confrontation; he just keeps on hoping to abandon his humanity and any connection to his land. He withdraws to the good old-fashioned movies with clear definitions of virtue and principles, where moral compass always works. He drinks Coca-Cola, speaks only English and re-watches old westerns on a portable player. He also prays regularly just as his faith requires. This is his method to cope with the self-imposed loneliness, and to protect himself from pain, grief, sorrow, fear. Survival without emotions becomes the overwhelming goal. Difficult to achieve. When he encounters Nadia, a young girl in an abandoned house, alone with a body of her mother, he feels compassion, and reluctantly decides to take her to his friend where she would have a chance to stay safe. He doesn’t want to admit to himself why he’s taking care of bereaved girl, he doesn’t want to reveal his feelings and the universal need to help and be needed. He has buried his vulnerability.

‘The man and his camel ramble then slowly through an unparticular portion of the naked desert which is pathless and brown and of gravel and dust. As the sun rises to its full intensity the man sees his shadow stretched out and warped before him with its hat and its collar and its camel, and throughout that morning and afternoon he indulges in its outline as its owner. They trudge baked beneath the hot sun until at some point from under the brim of his hat the man squints and sees hovering blobs of darkness that emerge from the dirt and then begin steadily to grow and wobble on the horizon.’

So they begin to travel together, the girl wanting to become friends, him frightened of being close to another human being: ‘In Iraq it’s better not to think about friendship. The most important thing is to survive,’ and then he says, ‘Friendship is bad for survival,’ and, ‘To have friends is to be attached, and after two become attached is when they can be split.’ As they move further from one danger, there is a constant risk of another, as well as the prospect of incomprehensible atrocities from those who took over the country and deliver violent judgments on who is a coward, or a traitor, who deserves to die or who might be useful for a while. Schism in the country, bad ‘Ali Babas’, police, army, Shia militia and Sunni Muslims, Haters and Rejectors. The cowboy – the American while he’s with girl – would like to be an iconic hero but can he really overcome the brutal reality of punishing heat and threat? Does the escape into the archetypal role of a cowboy provide any psychological and spiritual security? 

The apparent simplicity of Yates’ narration and language in the Middle Eastern style of One Thousand and One Nights’ storytelling creates a near magical mood and sense of belonging in the bleak beautiful landscape.  Bruce Omar Yates writes with passion hidden underneath everyday post-destruction reality. His way of dividing the novel into three distinct but connected parts creates a conduit to analyse three famous westerns and the ethical points: ‘And in those films the man hadn’t only seen the distinct templates for good men and bad men and for a life of questing and justice where actions could lead to clear consequences in contrast to the many ambiguities that had been imposed on him and his country of late, but he had also seen the template for the life of a survivalist, and though his favourite characters were maybe of ignorance and self-indulgence they were also of fairness and honour.’

The Muslim Cowboy is out  on 22^nd August and you can get a copy directly from the publisher Dead Ink Books or here. Thank you Antara Patel (FMcM Associates) for the invitation to join the blogtour and for the early copy of the book.

‘It only takes a little damage to turn glass into a weapon.’

Sarah Hilary, the author of D.I. Marnie Rome series, and standalone novels Fragile and Black Thorn, often takes a thought, an idea, and turns it into the most gut-wrenching yet uplifting story, and here in Sharp Glass again she creates an intriguing tense tale that brings the nuanced powerful exploration of life and of every individual person that enters her fictional world. Fictional but firmly anchored in realistic events. She takes obsession to another level of painful but necessary process of understanding and overcoming. The empathy shimmers around, sometimes it shouts, sometimes it just whispers, and every single word has its place, even if it brings doubt and distress. While reading Sharp Glass I was under the impression that Sarah Hilary was living inside the novel and processing every minute experience that her main characters had to face.

The last thing she remembers is standing outside the empty house. One she was employed to pack, ready for removal. Her job is her life. It is her compulsion to take care of an owner’s precious possessions, to do whatever it takes to help them move on. Now she is cold, dirty, damp, trapped in its cellar with no chance of escape, miles from anywhere. His prisoner.
And then he returns.
Her captor believes she holds the answers to why a young girl was murdered a year ago. He refuses to let her go until she reveals her secrets. But he doesn’t know she has hidden depths, and an anger she works hard to control.
The battle lines are drawn. They are the only two people who can solve the mystery of the dead girl, but when the truth is revealed whose life will shatter…?

What a premise! If you could just imagine the isolated location where the house imposes its dark presence, full of practical challenges and infused with memories and drama that take over logic and any rational thinking. The professional packer Gwen Leonard arrives to prepare contents of seven rooms for removal, keen to get going after the offer from Clare Miranda, a series of job cancellations, and quite traumatic recent assignment which led her to detective-like decision to find the killer of a teenage girl Elise Franklin murdered a year earlier.

Gwen, secure in her practical abilities, begins to unravel while locked in the cellar: ‘There is nothing you can teach me about packing, about neatness. It’s only people who puzzle me. Their attachment, for instance, to broken things.’ This new shocking situation leads her to assessing everything about own life, and to digging through deep concealed layers of secrets, unforgiving memories and thoughts that are not welcome. Panic and confusion settle in, and so do defiance and anger. We can feel there’s something else underneath the logical descriptions and emotions (can they be even called that?) associated with the confinement, the loss of freedom, the captivity. The thinking trajectory goes overboard, winding its way through assumptions, despair, puzzlement, some reckless randomness: ‘How an estate agent would describe my cellar: ‘Deceptively spacious and unspoilt, the perfect project, full of original features.’ How I describe it: Airless, windowless, packed with the smell of myself. Secret, hidden, torturous. A prison.’

‘I buried the last person who lied to me’ isn’t the most trust-inducing statement from the man who keeps her prisoner and insists her name is Grace Maddox. However, he seems to keep both his anger and distress at bay and is relatively kind in the circumstances. In order to maintain semblance of reality Gwen makes lists in her head, and tries to focus on survival and revenge. When a chance of escape appears she grabs it like a mad obsessed hallucinating person that she became after twelve days of captivity, not enough food, water and light, too much darkness, and the evolving desire to avenge Elise that pushes her now. Daniel Roake, child genius, well-educated ophthalmologist ‘knew he was losing his mind; he’d known it for days. A terrible thing had happened. But when he tried to get hold of it, his sight failed.’ He also has terrible gaps in memory which might have been caused by psychotic break, and many repressed feelings that worked on for years to ignore. The one thing that keeps him from descending into total madness is belief that Gwen / Grace knows about Elise’s killer and somehow would be able to help to connect confusing elements of the tragic puzzle.

Love, loss and rage encompass so many tiny details that are life. Power and violence are reactions to what life brings. The two main characters of Sharp Glass need each other to find way of living with childhood trauma and the current ‘fire, flood, explosion’ situation, of learning to trust, and maybe of accepting forgiveness. Their families and friends also need some peace which might be impossible to find. We, the readers, are privileged to join their journey of deep connections and exposed vulnerability. We will be safe but changed at the end of it. Sarah Hilary could say ‘I’ve never yet lost anything precious in transit.’ Very true.

The link to Sharp Glass by Sarah Hilary which is out on 11 July.

Jon Fosse is a Norwegian author, translator, poet and playwright. His work spans over seventy novels, poems, children’s books, essays, and theatre plays which have been translated into over fifty languages The most performed Norwegian playwright after Henrik Ibsen Jon Fosse is currently – with productions presented on over a thousand stages worldwide – one of the most performed contemporary playwrights globally. When he was awarded The Nobel Prize in Literature last year ‘for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable’, joyfulness erupted in Norway with widespread Fosse-feber or Fosse’s fever as the author and his works became celebrated absolutely everywhere. Everyone was, and still is, talking about the award. In 1928 Sigrid Undset received Nobel Prize so it has been a long time until now and Norwegians were overjoyed. Waiting lists appeared in many libraries, the publishers rushed to issue new editions of Fosse’s work and generally there’s a great buzz. And a special recognition of Nynorsk, and here’s some information: ‘Bokmål and Nynorsk are two different standards of writing in Norwegian. The Norwegian language comes from Old Norse, a language used in Scandinavia during the Viking Era. Over time Germanic influences, including language, spread to Northern Europe. When Norway entered a union with Denmark, Danish started to prevail in Norwegian society, being a language of the elite, the law and the church. The union with Denmark ended in 1814 and there was a rise of patriotic movements, as well as  search for ‘own’ Norwegian language form started. A man called Ivar Aasen travelled around the country in the 1800s and compared different dialects. He created a form of Norwegian later called Landsmål, based on the dialects. This form became Nynorsk.’

Jon Fosse delivered his thoughtful inspiring Nobel Prize lecture in literature on 7^th December 2023 at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm. The whole text can be found online Jon Fosse – Nobel Prize lecture in English, Swedish and Norwegian, translated beautifully into English by May Brit Akerholt. On the World Book Day and Copyright Day I really felt like quoting some paragraphs from his speech to remember the words and to reflect.

A Silent Language

When I was at junior high school, it happened without warning. The teacher asked me to read aloud. And out of nowhere, I was overcome by a sudden fear that overpowered me. It was like I disappeared into the fear and it was all I was. I stood up and ran out of the classroom. I noticed the big eyes of the students as well as the teacher following me out of the class room.
This fear of reading aloud followed me. As time went by, I found the courage to ask the teachers to be excused from reading out loud, as I was so afraid of it, some believed me and stopped asking me, some thought that in one way or another, I was pulling their leg.
I learnt something important about people from this experience. I learnt many other things […] In a way it was as if the fear took my language from me, and that I had to take it back, so to speak. And if I were to do that, it couldn’t be on other people’s terms, but on my own. I started to write my own texts, short poems, short stories. And I discovered that doing so, gave me a sense of safety, gave me the opposite of fear. In a way I found a place inside myself that was just mine, and from that place I could write what was just mine.

Now, about fifty years later, I still sit and write – and I still write from this secret place inside me, a place I quite honestly don’t know much more about other than that it exists. The Norwegian poet Olav H. Hauge has written a poem where he compares the act of writing to being a child, building leaf huts in the forest, crawling into them, lighting candles, sitting and feeling safe in dark autumn evenings. I think this is a good image of how I, too, experience the act of writing.

Through the fear of reading aloud I entered the loneliness that is more or less the life of a writing person – and I’ve stayed there ever since. I’ve written a great deal of both prose and drama. And of course, what characterises drama is that it is written speech, where the dialogue, the conversation, or often the attempt to speak, and what there may be of monologue, is always an imagined universe, is a part of something that doesn’t inform, but that has its own being, that exists. […] One thing is certain, I have never written to express myself, as they say, but rather to get away from myself.

And the act of writing is to me to listen: when I write I never prepare, I don’t plan anything, I proceed by listening. So if I should use a metaphor for the action of writing, it has to be that of listening. Thus, it almost goes without saying, that writing is reminiscent of music. And at a certain time, in my teens, I went more or less directly from only being engaged with music, to writing. I actually completely stopped both playing music myself and listening to music, and started to write, and in my writing, I tried to create something of what I experienced when I played. That’s what I did then – and what I still do. Something else, perhaps a bit strange, is when I write, at a certain point I always get a feeling that the text has already been written, is out there somewhere, not inside me, and that I just need to write it down before the text disappears.

My first books were quite poorly reviewed, but I decided not to listen to the critics, I should just trust myself, yes, stick to my writing. And if I hadn’t done that, yes, then I would have stopped writing after my debut novel, Raudt, svart (Red, Black) came out forty years ago. Later I received mostly good reviews, and I even started to receive prizes – and then I thought that it was important to continue with the same logic, if I didn’t listen to the bad reviews, I also wouldn’t let success influence me, I would hold fast to my writing, hold on to, hang on to what I had created. When it was announced that I had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, I received a lot of emails and congratulations, and of course I was very pleased, most of the greetings were simple and cheerful, but some people wrote that they were screaming with joy, others that they were moved to tears. That truly touched me.

On the spur of a moment Guro answers a newspaper ad by André, owner of a vineyard near Nice, a man who lives in Bergen, just like her. She leaves her job in Bergen and travels to a small mountain village Callian in Provence to become a companion for his mother Marie who had moved from Norway decades ago. This impulsive decision defies partly her doctor’s advice. Compulsion makes her escape the apparently ordinary life while ‘the fear of change and of approaching catastrophes’ remains constantly in her head. Seventy-five-year-old down-to-earth and easy-going Marie seems to be the first person who really sees and hears Guro, and truly understands the futile battle between enjoying the beauty of life and simultaneously punishing herself for doing so. Marie introduces Guro to her friends and to a different way of thinking, of being gentle to oneself. The illogical yet real perception by Guro is indeed difficult, her situation turns quite dramatic and we hope that time and empathy will soothe the hurting soul and body.

I am yet to read Agnes Lovise Matre’s krim books that made her a respected, popular and well-liked author in the Norwegian crime fiction sphere but I was lucky to get a copy of Every Shade of Me / Stryk meg over håret, her debut from 2012. It has recently been translated into English by May-Brit Akerholt. Following publication of this literary story in the mood of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, though much darker, Matre has published four crime fiction novels and two psychological thrillers; some were translated into German.

After a career as a freelance journalist Matre now works part time as a teacher in Haugesund in western Norway and of course continues to write. In 2020 she was awarded the Norwegian Silver Dagger Award (Sølvkniven) for her crime fiction novel Ice Cold / Iskald. Her popular Dark Fjord series is set in the spectacular Hardanger, also known as The Garden of Norway. Imagine stunning landscapes with the dark, elongated fjord, blossoming fruit trees and snow on the high mountaintops during the summer and fog, rain and huge amounts of snow during the winter. In these locations Matre uses the crime genre as a framework to talk about themes like shame, feelings of guilt, suppression and secrets; themes that were considered to be forbidden and should have never been mentioned, especially in the harsh living conditions and tough environment when survival was often the most important goal.

Having read about Matre’s style and the issues she is interested in, I was not surprised that Every Shade of Me was in a way an early introduction to the future crime novels. The author creates a living breathing location as a solid background for the main character Guro who seeks solace in lovely French landscape, among beautiful scenery, surrounded by fragrant plants and amazingly good healthy food. The solid nature of yes! nature helps her to deal with her illness. This process isn’t easy but necessary. She has to get a grip on her eating disorder, start believing in herself and maybe even allow herself to fall in love with someone – maybe Dominic who runs a farm near Marie’s property – without the crippling need to control everything that’s uncontrollable: ‘She was anxious. Scared of dying, scared of recovering,’

There is enough tension and distrust to push Guro (and the readers) over the edge. We know enough about eating disorders to realise that some deep pain must have been a reason. Dealing with past traumas and finding a right path to recovery prove to be a daunting task for her. However, peeling away layers of secrets and going back to childhood to analyse how events over the years have shaped her emotional reactions as an adult. Matre’s portrayal of a person struggling with bulimia is powerful and touching, and ultimately very positive.

Furia is no barrel of laughs in terms of highly topical themes and serious social issues. It ‘exploded’ on Viaplay in 2021 to huge critical acclaim, brilliant reception from reviewers and enthusiasm of the viewers. However, this political thriller created by the International Emmy-winner writer, director and producer Gjermund Stenberg Eriksen, is a pure TV masterpiece, a fantastic, relevant and exciting TV series, an incredible cinematic adventure with sharp plot, excellent acting, strong characters, tensions and many questions. Plus the most spectacular locations adding to the mood. Although a fictional story, this is a drama about the times we live in, and the reality of forces and threats that people are faced with in Norway and other European countries these days. They also apply to the future of Europe and democracy which is not a given, as we realise more and more.

The first season’s premise was linked to two terrorist attacks by a far-right extremist on 22^nd July 2011 in Norway, showing the forces driving / pushing radicalisation. Furia examines how terror as a means of action has become stronger after these events and its escalation including the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, the election of Trump in the US and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Season 2 takes the narration, the plot and the main characters to Hungary and Poland, dealing with the increased hatred of the Pride movement; hatred which is used to polarise, radicalise and create fear.

As part of Skjebnetid for Europa / Destiny time for Europe events this spring at the University of Oslo, a second episode of the new season was shown to the audience on 9^th April which is a darkly significant date as eighty-four years earlier in 1940 Nazi Germany invaded Norway. The official release of Furia 2 will be on 19^th April on Amazon Prime. Ahead of this special evening last week the first episode was sent to those who would attend. This helped to put things in context and be pulled into dramatic story. A panel discussion ‘Can authoritarian forces take over Europe?’ followed the screening in a beautiful space of University’s Aula, famous for its murals by Edvard Munch, and cultural heritage: knowledge, truth and science. Here Louis Armstrong sang. Here also Martin Luther King received his Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Here people speak freely and admire timeless art.

The discussion, led by the NRK journalist Hege Moe Eriksen , focussed on populism, right-wing extremism and authoritarian forces in today’s Europe: ‘How can we counteract the darkest forces at a time when there is a battle for truth, history and power? What could happen if authoritarian leaders take power in central European countries? Are Europe and democracy equipped to stand up to such threats?’ Apart from Gjermund Stenberg Eriksen whois also a creator of the podcast for NRK and who has been commenting on the US politics, three leading researchers took part in it: Jette Christensen, former member of the Norwegian parliament and political scientist, author and analyst in the Alting; John Erik Fossum, Professor at ARENA Centre for European Research at the University of Oslo, and Anders Ravik Jupskås, researcher on right-wing extremism, populism and political parties at Centre for Extremism Research (C-REX).

I am wondering if it is even possible to separate the current reality and political climate from the fiction in Furia. The boundaries seem more fragile and the ‘fear and familiarity’ narrative takes over rationality which then leads to another question how people perceive the world they live in. I cannot wait to watch the whole season, especially as much of the production took place in Poland and so many of Polish professionals have been involved in creating another thrilling journey for his political thriller. Bartosz Chajdecki’s music makes you feel drama and fury in your bones. I’m sure it will be another unforgettable experience. And I’m convinced the entire crew working on Furia had the most amazing time.

Furia 2 trailer – English It’s been two years since Ellen and Asgeir stopped the terror attack in Berlin. Ellen is back home caring for her elderly father, while Asgeir and his daughter live in Lofoten, in hiding from the relentless and lethal Ziminov. When a brutal murder leads Ellen and Asgeir to Hungary, they discover that this is part of something much bigger; a plot to tear down the European democracy. With the lives of their loved ones hanging in the balance, Ellen and her uncompromising partner Asgeir are forced into a race against time to foil a new terrorist plot that takes them from the Arctic to Budapest and into the heart of Warsaw. Created by Gjermund Stenberg Eriksen (Mammon); directed by Magnus Martens (Banshee) Gjermund Stenberg Eriksen and Michał Rogalski (Summer Solstice) with Pål Sverre Hagen (Kon-Tiki, Exit, In Order of Disappearance, War Sailor), Ine Marie Wilmann (Troll, Sonja: The White Swan), Borys Szyc (Oscar-nominated Cold War) leading the outstanding cast.