With the book Tett inntil dagene (t: Close to the days) journalist Mustafa Can was inscribed into the hearts of a large audience. Painting a close portrait of his own mother, Can’s book tells the story of a woman, starting her life in a poor rural district in Turkish Kurdistan, and ending up in the modern Sweden of which she never truly became a part. Nevertheless, she was solid as a rock in the lives of her children. The writer Hanan al-Shaykh was encouraged by her own mother to write her unusual story, and the novel The Locust and the Bird was the result. After getting married off as a child bride in 1950s Lebanon, Kamila choose freedom, running away from husband and children to follow love. Salman Rushdie, Marjane Satrapi and J.M. Coetzee have all praised this remarkable book now available in Norwegian. See both writers in conversation with journalist and former TV presenter Marte Spurkland.