I can't recommend this book enough. Inventive in both plot and style. Although it's set in Sweden, it deals with some very universal issues of immigration and otherness as well as tensions between father and son. ( )

It took me a long time to get into this book. I almost put it down on several occasions. In the end, I'm glad I finished. I found the writing style a little confusing at times, and had a hard time really liking the characters at first. It got better as the book went on. By the end of the book I would have given it four stars.

What I found most interesting was that the book was translated from Swedish. There is so much in the book that deals with language and wordplay that it seems like it would be very challenging, almost impossible, to translate. I would like to find an interview with the translator to find out what the process was like. (Becky, thanks for saving me time on the search!)


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I can't recommend this book enough. Inventive in both plot and style. Although it's set in Sweden, it deals with some very universal issues of immigration and otherness as well as tensions between father and son. ( )

It is difficult to do this book justice in any focused way. There are bound to be layers and nuances omitted. But here goes... (review based on the original Swedish):

Montecore consists of a mix of letters, text, reflections and even footnotes and interjections by/between the author (named Jonas Hassen Khemiri) and Kadir, a childhood friend of his father Abbas's from before Abbas's marriage to a Swedish woman and emigration from Tunisia to Sweden. The author/narrator has decided that the follow-up to his successful 1st novel (i.e., Ett öga rött) will be a book about his father, and he and Kadir engage in discussions about what to include and how Abbas will be portrayed.

Abbas struggles in Sweden - to be accepted, to fit in, to get his photo studio off the ground, and to support his family. We see him make drastic changes (justified ones? wrong ones? discuss...) through Jonas's eyes (with explanations & interjections, & even objections from Kadir) - at the same time as we see Jonas going through similar struggles trying to find his own place in Sweden.

Khemiri plays with language, thereby exploring deep links between language and culture - mixing 'proper' Swedish along with his father's (and Kadir's) own blend of French and Arabic influenced Swedish, along with the narrator's own shifts in language.

His novel is about the immigrant experience, of trying to break into Swedish culture, of not really being able to go 'back'; it is a coming of age story; it is about fathers and sons; it is about finding one's place and fitting in; the Epilogue both sheds light and raises new questions; it is funny, sad, a celebration, a condemnation; it is about successes and failures; - it is all these things and so much more. ( )

http://olvasonaplo.freeblog.hu/archives/2010/01/10/Jonas_Hassen_Khemiri_Montecor... ( )