Great attention and sharp debate
Vår ære og vår frykt - en personlig reise i det muslimske Europa was one of last year's most talked about books in Norway. The book is written by politician and debater Abid Raja and published by our colleagues at the publishing house Cappelen Damm.
In the book Vår ære og vår frykt - en personlig reise i det muslimske Europa Norway's former Minister of Culture and Equality, Abid Raja, examines how the integration of Muslims in Europe is going. The book, which is about integration, immigration and Islamophobia, is based on a large and broad number of sources in several countries and required an extra effort from our colleagues at our Norwegian publisher Cappelen Damm, who have published the book.
As a politician and debater, Abid Raja is known for his insight and his views on integration and immigration in Norwegian society. His first book, Min skyld (“My fault”), is Abid Raja's personal account of what it is like to grow up as a young Muslim in Norway and it became the best-selling Norwegian non-fiction book for 20 years.
The book opened doors to many new sources and insights in Europe.
"Abid Raja was given access to all environments; dark ghettos, backyards, gilded corridors of power, and he has spoken to an extremely large number of sources – from ministers and intellectuals to relatives, professionals and former criminals," says editor Kristin M. Hauge.
Cappelen Damm assigned two editors to the task of keeping track of the material from the many sources.
"As script editor, I followed him daily and helped sort through the interviews, keep the motivation and pace, and help ask the critical questions," explains Kristin M. Hauge, and her colleague Erik Møller Solheim adds:
"My task was to keep the broad outlines of the overall story in the book."
More than 15 weeks on the bestseller list testify that the book and its themes are relevant like never before.
"The individual's story has a value and an explosive power that affects far more than the private sphere, and few stories prove this better than Abid Raja’s," says Erik Møller Solheim.