Tätt intill dagarna: berättelsen om min mor

by Mustafa Can

Güllü Can døde på Skövde sygehus i januar 2005.
Hun blev født i Kurdistan en gang i slutningen af 1930´erne, fødte syv børn, der døde, og otte, der overlevede. Udvandrede til Sverige i 1970´erne.
Hvem var denne kvinde, familiens kraftfulde midtpunkt som hverken kunne læse eller skrive, og som Mustafa som barn skammede sig over?
Under morbærtræets skygge er Mustafa Can forsøg på at forstå sin mor, og han når frem til en verden af indestængte følelser og ensomhed, men også af betingelsesløs kærlighed og menneskets evne til at rejse sig fra nederlag.

Genres: Swedish Literature, Nonfiction, Biography, Sweden

297 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Jacqueline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot remember reading a story that touched me so deeply.
Mustafa Can moved to Sweden with his mother Güllu and siblings from Kurdistan when he was 6 years old. His father had already lived there for a few years, so the family came.
At her mother's deathbed, Mustafa seeks to learn more about her. Güllu never talked about herself. While she is seek and dying, Mustafa and his family take care of her at home. Several months where Mustafa asked her what he never took time or dared to ask.
Güllu has always been loving for her family. Mustafa's parents married young. They were poor. They lost seven of their 15 children. Güllu was illiterate, she never learned Swedish. Mustafa was ashamed of her when he was a child. She was so different from other mothers. After her death, Mustafa spoke about her to relatives and neighbours in Kurdistan, and discovers how kind she was and how loved she was. Mustafa leads us to people who, despite poverty, little schooling and often illiteracy, show a deep intelligence and wisdom.
This novel is a story about cultural differences, homesickness, shame, guilt, but also about love and warmth. It is fantastically written.

[Christina Stind · Rating 4 out of 5]

How can you love a stranger? This is the question Mustafa Can tries to answer while watching his mother slowly die from a liver disease. Because who is this woman who has given birth to 15 children and watched 7 of them die, who has moved from Kurdistan to Sweden, who couldn't read or write and in spite of never learning to speak Swedish, was the centre of the family in both Kurdistan and Sweden?
Mustafa Can tries to get his mother to tell him about herself while she slowly fades away - and after her death and her burial in the home village, he talks with his father, his extended family and the people in the village.
Everybody tells about this self-sacrificing woman who lived for her husband and especially her children, who understood what it is to be a mother and who always struggled to give the best to her children. Only negative thing anybody says is that she maybe loved her children too much - but she always believed that you can never love too much or be loved to much.
Can struggles with his guilt over feeling ashamed of his mother when she showed up in his Swedish school and looked so different from the other women in the way she dressed and how she always covered her hair. They share a beautiful moment when he begs for her forgiveness and she tells him that she knew he was ashamed, that she maybe even knew it before he himself did, that children feel that way and that she forgave him years ago.
The book is filled with the struggles of raising a foreign family in a new and different land, the struggle of being integrated and the way families are being split apart because the younger generations become more and more assimilated to their new country and forget the old ways. The children speak to each other in a language the mother can't speak or even understand, they have interest and hobbies she know nothing about and the gap between parents and children are not just because of the age difference - as Can sees the gap between his friends and their parents - but between different cultures. They end up living so different lives that they can hardly reach each other - even though Can's parents have tried their hardest to keep their children ready to move back to the old country, to the village.
The story of this old woman who has suffered so much - especially the loss of the 7 children - is heart-breaking and at the same time as her way of life is so very foreign to us who are used to the Western way of life, her struggles and her fears are the same as every mother experience when their children is hurt - but multiplied by the hardships she's already gone through.
After her death, when her husband, Can's father, tells of their life and of Can's dead siblings and how he suffered when he had to live several years in Sweden alone, struggling to make ends meet for him and for his entire family back home and how he could hardly get himself to eat a piece of meat because then he would think of his hungry children, I as the reader was just heartbroken because we as wealthy, civilised countries still allow people to live and suffer like this.
The dignity these people have in their way of life and the way they face up to adversities and struggles, are so impressive and we could learn so much from both this and their zest for life, if we could just open up our hearts and feel and see these people, even though they look and act different from us.
In my daily work I've met so many people who I reminded of while reading this book and it gave me a deeper understanding of the struggles you face when you decide to uproot your family in search of a better life - or are forced to do it because of war, famine, genocide or other disasters.
Integration is a sorrow process - people leave behind everything they know and come to a different country with different culture, different faith and the people here are most of the time not even welcoming or friendly. This book should be required reading for anyone who dislikes the strangers, the others, and just want everyone to go back home where they belong instead of coming here and expecting to just receive support and welfare. This book should be required reading for anyone who works with fugitives or with immigration because it paints the human picture behind the statistics and the headlines.
It's a beautiful memoir Mustafa Can has written about his mother - but it's also a beautiful rendition of the struggles the entire family faced because his father decided to bring them to Sweden to give them a better chance of life and to avoid loosing more children.
Highly recommended!

[Haroon Choudrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t think of words strong enough to describe this book and how it has touched me.

Gullu Can was born in Kurdistan, lost 7 of her children, moved to Sweden and is now spending her final days surrounded by her family. Her son Mustafa is questioning whether he really knew his mother and starts digging in her past.

This book has touched me and will stay with me for a long time. The way the author puts word to sorrow, faith and life in general blows me away. This is a book that everyone should read.

[Isidora · Rating 4 out of 5]

I mina ögon är det främst en bok om utvandringen. Gulli Can är en av de många kvinnor som lämnat sitt hem och på gott och ont skapat ett nytt liv i ett främmande land. Mest för sina barn, för att hon alltid förblev en främling. Boken är skriven med så mycket kärlek som väger upp all sorg i Gullis liv.

[Mina Widding · Rating 4 out of 5]

Det bästa sättet att få någon slags inblick i människors upplevelser som är annorlunda från ens egna, är att läsa biografier och memoarer.
Can berättar om sin mor, försöker förstå sin mor och hennes levnadsöde som född i fattig bondfamilj, föda femton barn varav sju dör, följa efter din make till Sverige för att ge dem ett drägligare liv och bättre förutsättningar. Vem var min mor, vad kände hon, hur upplevde hon allt detta? Och även om boken kanske inte når fram till svaren, inte så uttömmande som han skulle önska, så är det oerhört fint att följa med på denna undersökningsresa. Oerhört mänskligt. Och jag lär mig, vidgar mina vyer, förstår lite av hur ett invandraröde kan se ut.
Starkt och viktigt.

[Stefan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Guilt drives Can’s quest to learn who his mother really was. The answer is one of redemption; the kind that only a mother can provide.

As one grows older and learns through experience the often difficult choices your parents had to make to make a life for themselves and their children, it is difficult not to feel guilt. Guilt over having taken so many things for granted, including your own parents. It is hard to see the woman in your mother. What this book ultimately teaches you is that parents make sacrifices to that their children will not have to question the love they receive. It is OK to take our parents for granted (to some degree). At the same time the book teaches you to pause and consider the choices your parents had to make; to fully appreciate those choices.

This book makes you want to pick up the phone and call your mother, talk to her, apologize for ever taking her for granted.

I hope this book will eventually be released in English so more people can experience this fantastic book filled with so much emotion.

[Geir Ertzgaard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vet ikke om jeg kan gi denne en femmer, til det renner boken ut i sanden de siste hundre sidene. Men fortellingen om morens død, fram til farene erindringer er ferdige, er sterk kost. Det er en bok om å elske en fremmed, om at vi er fremmede for hverandre, men like mye om det å være innvandrer og outsider.

[Dorthe Svendsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

En hyllest til mødre, tenker jeg. Dette er en bok jeg har lest tidligere, når den kom ut, men siden jeg nå var så heldig å få oppleve @mustafacanwriter live, så tenkte jeg at jeg måtte gi den en ny sjanse. Jeg er nå glad for det. For det har gått mange år, og jeg har lest mange bøker i mellomtiden, og nå med en del fler perspektiver på verden, så lander den mye bedre hos meg. Både med tanke på budskapet om det å være mor, agere på en mor, med det å stå i en vanskelig oppvekst og det å stå i flere kulturer legges det her frem masse gode tanker vi lesere kan lære av å innta.

[Okidoki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Detta är inte en roman, snarare ett detaljerat reportage från en dödsbädd, med inslag av hågkomster. Emotionellt jobbigt att läsa om den långdragna dödsprocessen. Rörande var skildringen av moderns besök i Stockholm, försöken att lära sig skriva. Återbesöken i byn. Hon förlorade Språk, Vänner och Barnens förståelse med inflyttningen till Sverige.

[Linnea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insiktsfullt och med vackert språk berättat om att lämna ett hemland och priset som betalas, om sorg, fattigdom, kulturkrockar och vad innebär det att vara en god människa? En bok som inrymmer allt det stora.

[Leif Harboe]

Nydelig bok om en kurdisk familie som har emigrert til Sverige. Mora ligger for døden, og den ene sønnen innser at han vet veldig lite om henne. En vakker skildring.

[Tallulah Bankhead · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ömsint och rörande.
Kanske är varje förälder en gåtfull främling för sina barn.

[Anja Rønning · Rating 4 out of 5]

Veldig fin bok ❤️

[Lama Alterri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Väldigt känslomässig, brast enstaka gånger. Det som jag kunde störa mig lite i boken var upprepningarna som skedde då o då, men för övrigt väldigt bra bok🥰

[Anas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mor, är inte bara en person. Mor är en hel plats i den här världen.

[Linda Söderlund · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Ja, nej, ja, nej, ja, nej...
Hemma blir borta, borta blir hemma. I Sverige säger jag: hemma i byn. Och i byn: hemma i Sverige. Jag kan inte få länderna att byta plats. Jag vill flytta Sveriges sociala trygghet och fria, öppna samhälle till byn, eller flytta byns människor, sedvänjor och dofter till Sverige."

"Arbetet blir ändå en vilopunkt från sorgen, ångesten och saknaden som din död förde med sig. Dessutom slipper jag oroa mig för hur du mår. [---] Hur mycket jag än vill[---], går det inte att sluta gråta när jag tänker på dig, vilket blir varje dag. Du får förlåta mig för den svagheten."

[Siri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can ble kåret til årets svenske forfatter for denne boka, som i utgangspunktet handler om hans mor :-)

Ja, nå har jeg lest denne flotte boka, og er glad for det!

Dette er en sterk og følsom bok! Den gir en sjeldent god innsikt i følelser og opplevelser familier/enkeltpersoner som må utvandre/bli innvandrere i et nytt land, opplever. Jeg tror dette er en bok som kan treffe de fleste, og gi oss en god posjon ydmykhet overfor mennesker rundt oss, som har måtte forlate sine røtter/sitt hjem for å starte på nytt i et fremmed land.

Klokt og vakkert skrevet!!

[Solveig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hørte på denne med Mai-The Duc som oppleser. Can har ordene i sin hule hånd. Jeg ble både rørt og glad over den kjærligheten han hadde for sin mor. Jeg har vært med på en reise til Sverige og Tyrkia som har beriket livet mitt. Anbefales på det varmeste!

[Jack]

Så sjukt mycket adjektiv. Ibland blir det för smetigt och högtravande men också mycket fint, roligt och levande berättad. Skildrar många aspekter av vad det kan innebära att vara människa: Invandring, språkbarriärer, familj, kunskap.. Vet inte vad jag vill ha sagt med det.. bla bla

[Sigrid Tjønnøy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ei meget interessant bok, der man får et innblikk i hvordan det er å vokse opp med tilknytning til to forskjellige kulturer, og utfordringer med å tilpasse seg begge to. Tankevekkende og gripende.