A Review by Jardar Alai.
Photo Credit: Norla
Representation matters and in the newly published book by author Zeshan Shakar called Tante Ulrikkes Vei, translated to "Aunt Ulrikkes Road" in English, we get a glimpse of the same. In the book we follow the story of two young men Mo and Jamal where they communicate to a scientist about how it is like to grow up in the eastern part of Oslo, Norway. Both of them live in the same apartment block on the street of Tante Ulrikkes vei in an area called Stovner. Stovner is a multicultural place but unfortunately has gotten a reputation of a hub of violence where crimes occur.
L iving on the same block, they have completely different lives. Mo is highly educated student with good grades, is introverted, and he does not lack parental support. Mo decided to communicate with the scientist through emails. Jamal instead is the opposite of Mo. Jamal has a rebellious soul, he is not good in school, and he lacks parental support and guidance and that has left Jamal to take hard decisions on his own. Jamal communicates with the scientist orally. We follow Jamal and Mo documenting their life throughout the easy and tough times of their lives. We follow them in times of romance, life as a student, economic problems and incidents where they both encounter racism.
I liked the book because of it showing the struggles of POCs in Norway. The book was good at making Mo and Jamal relatable on struggles like having parents who push you very hard in school or not feeling like the government cared about you and you have been erased to a caricature of an angry foreigner that does not belong in the country and that u don’t feel Norwegian at all, but you feel like you only represent your hood or your family's origin country or even both. The book represented POCs through Jamal's words. Jamal talked on the multiethnic version of Norwegian called Kebabnorsk. Kebabnorsk uses words from other languages such as Arabic, Somali and Urdu in daily use of Norwegian language. Another thing I really like was the way Mr. Shakar showed Stovner in a positive way where life in Stovner is not really different from life in the rest of the country, where everybody tried to live life as best as they could. The only criticism I have is that the book used many racial slurs in it. The usage of the N-word was said many times of non-black character but at the same time that could be an open decision by the author to show that racism is normalized in the society.
Overall, the book is a great book to read.