Ingenbarnsland

Gårdsten in the 1980s, a housing estate on the outskirts of Gothenburg near Bergsjön: tarmac courtyards, concrete blocks, stony expressions. Miira's mother earns her living mopping stairwells, working her way upwards past passed-out drunks and filthy walls. Older kids loiter on the dreary square, the local tough guys carry blades, and someone has torched the school bin. Miira stands out among the girls in her class for Finnish children. She picks fights rather than dodging them, takes orders from no one and signs up for the demanding maths stream. Her ambition is to run the country or operate on brains, never to scrub floors. Yet although she was born in Sweden, the school files her as a foreigner who needs remedial Swedish.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

331 pages in the original

Genres

Coming of age, Migration (assigned by AI)

Set in

Sweden, 1980s

First published

2012 by Norstedts

Author's age

39 when first published

ISBN

9789113038544 (original)

More

Wikidata