Simon Stranger

Simon Stranger
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Simon Stranger: De som ikke finnes. Young people’s novel, Cappelen Damm, 2014.

Three years ago, fifteen-year-old Emilie discovered a young African boat refugee, Samuel, floating in the water around Gran Canaria and had him rescued and brought ashore. Over the course of several hectic days she helped him with food and shelter, and when the police finally caught up with them, she gave him a note with her address.

Now Samuel is standing outside her bedroom window. He fled northwards through Europe and was brutally exploited for both work and sex. He has one last hope – that Emilie and Norway will give him the chance to lead his life with dignity. Their previous encounter lit a spark within Emilie that flared into a deep social commitment, but this is a new and entirely different challenge. Trouble is literally banging at her window. By helping an illegal immigrant, she puts her own future at stake. After all, what can an eighteen-year-old Norwegian girl actually do to put right everything that’s wrong in the world?

De som ikke finnes (“Those who don’t exist”, not translated into English) is the third novel and the highlight in Simon Stranger’s series for young people about the Norwegian teenager Emilie’s confrontation with the enormous disparities in the world’s living conditions. In this novel he focuses on highly topical political issues – in this case undocumented people – but he also manages to lift the thematics to a more general level. He allows a balanced shift in perspective between Samuel and Emilie, and shows clearly how the fortunes of both of them have been shaped by where they were born. Emilie can’t help that she was born rich, just as Samuel can’t help that he was born poor, and both of them are powerless to make Samuel’s life better. And if you’re powerless, should you feel responsible and assume the blame for an injustice committed? De som ikke finnes is a charged story related in a literary language that is sober and stylised. The novel takes us to the brutal and desperate side of life, which exists not only on the other side of the globe, but also lurks in the dark corners of our safe Nordic societies.

Born in 1976, Simon Stranger made his debut in 2005 and has written books for children, young people, and adults. His two previous young people’s novels about Emilie, Barsakh in 2009 and Verdensredderne in 2012 (“The Rescuers of the World”), although not translated into English, have been translated into numerous languages.