Alejandro.
Alejandro.
Pauline Olsson Ghoreishi“I press the phone hard to my ear and feel my cheek get hot and sweaty when Adam says Hello do you know what has happened Alejandro is gone. Adam says Hello do you know what has happened Alejandro is dead.”
When Adam calls to tell our unnamed protagonist that Alejandro is dead, his world begins to crumble. It had been a while since they last spoke, but if Alejandro is dead, how can he still be alive?
A wildly poetic reminiscence of their brotherly bond takes us through their upbringing and into their teenage years. Where new friends introduces marijuana, leading to an innocent side hustle selling grass to save up for a car. That was before their group of friends started to get into real trouble.
We also follow closely the aftermath of Alejandro’s death. Unable to deal with his grief and disconnected from his emotions, our protagonist makes impulsive decisions by breaking up with his girlfriend, and calling Alejandro’s mother in the middle of the night. Trying to make sense of this new, emptier world.
Reading Alejandro., it is hard to believe that Pauline Olsson Ghoreishi is a debutant. The novel is imaginative and experimental in form, playfully poetic, and brilliantly opens up the mind of a troubled young man. Through his stream of consciousness, Pauline subtly comments on the current state of the world, where drugs are in abundance and young boys get dragged into dangerous situations. Where the worst could happen at any time.
The author has an absolute-pitch for the temperament of her main character and hits the quartertones of both despair and comedy when describing his view of his surroundings.
This is a topical depiction of a group of male friends in present-day Malmö, dealing with matters that bring Yahya Hassan’s poems to mind, but it is also an utterly engaging story of a young man navigating through the deepest sorrow whilst coming of age.
