It was here at RATW that I first heard of Arnaldur Indriadason (spell?), and I've just now finished his Arctic Chill, which features Erlandur, the police inspector, and I assume, part of a series about him. A rather dark procedural novel that begins with the murder of a ten-year old bi-racial child.
Along with the reading, I also watched a French film, The Class, which basically focused on a difficult class in a middle school. What really interested me were the similarities among the Icelandic, the French, and to a certaindegree in our schools here, in dealing with an immigrant population. In The Class, Wei, a Chinese boy, is having trouble with French because his mother doesn't speak it and Chinese is spoken at home. Likewise the same situation in Iceland. The mother of Elias, the murdered child, spoke to him in Thai, her native tongue. And in both film and book there were accusations of racial bias. I recommend both titles.
Surprising how, in spite of all our difference, we're also similar in many parts of the world.
