Narrative Non-fiction · Hardback

Our Honour and Our Fear

Norwegian title: Vår ære og vår frykt

Abid Raja

A topical and deeply personal book shedding light on several aspects of one the greatest societal challenges of our time.

At a young age, Abid Raja and his father were estranged. Now, as an adult, Raja accepts his father's plea for reconciliation, and a new world opens up for him. Relatives he has not seen for 16 years embrace him, and invite him back into a community that, as an integrated Norwegian, he had long ago opted out of.

It starts with a wedding in Pakistan, and ends with invitations from uncles, aunts and cousins ​​across Europe. The experience is a wake-up call, which makes Raja wonder what his life could have been if his father had chosen another country to migrate to when he left Pakistan in the 1970s.

In the bestselling book My fault, Raja brought the readers inside his childhood home in Oslo. This time he travels to notorious ghettos, hospitable homes as well as the gilded corridors of power in England, France, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Sweden and Denmark. In a Europe that has become polarized, he encounters people working for and against migration. He also encounters very different solutions to the challenges with integration.

After this, Abid Raja sees his own country with new eyes. How could he have been blind to these issues? Is there still time to turn the tide, before the Norwegian integration project finally falters? And what challenges do Muslim boys and girls who grow up in Norway face today?

There might be some answers in his own reconciliation, in the communities he meets - and in the story of his mother, who fell between two worlds. Who lived behind closed curtains in her Oslo apartment, and who is now buried in a cemetery in Mohri Sharif.

«What distinguishes Raja from other travel writers, such as Morten Strøksnes, Erika Fatland, Åsne Seierstad, and recently also historian Nils Rune Langeland, is precisely the fact that he is the child of immigrants with a Muslim background.»NRK, five/six stars

«Abid Raja is precise and strong here, pointing out a new challenge that everyone should take seriously.»DAGBLADET, five/six stars