Skyggedanseren

Kurdistan, 1994: Frmesk has stopped talking and eating, draws violent pictures and mutilates her dolls. Her grandmother Gawhar turns to her faith and sends her to Koran lessons at the town's great mosque, where Frmesk's uncle is the imam, not knowing what awaits her there. Her grandfather Darwésh fights the oppression of women by opening a hammam for women only. Denmark, 2007: Frmesk keeps to herself at university, goes without a headscarf and writes critical articles on women's rights. At home she runs the house for a mother lost in television and a divorced father who still comes daily to punish the family. When he finds the poems she writes in secret, the violence escalates, and she sees no way out but to seek freedom in yet another country.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

416 pages in the original

Genres

Family, Migration, Coming of age (assigned by AI)

Set in

Iraq, Denmark, 1994 and 2007

First published

2019 by Politikens Forlag

Author's age

33 when first published