One of Us

📖 The Scoop

'Two hours after the blast in downtown Oslo, a tall, blond man dressed in a police uniform boarded the little shuttle ferry to the island of Utoya, where the youth wing of the Labour Party held their yearly summer camp. He told the crew he had been sent to inform the youths of the attack on the government headquarters. Less than a minute after setting foot on the island, he killed his first victim, one of the island's two guards. Over the next hour he would shoot a victim every minute, most of them kids aged between 14 and 18. When the police finally arrived on the island, the assassin had been killing teenagers for an hour and a half.The police ordered him to stop shooting; he put down his weapon, lifted his arms, surrendered and smiled' On 22 July 2011 Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 of his fellow Norwegians in a terrorist atrocity that shocked the world. Asne Seierstad had spent years visiting war-torn countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Chechnya as a foreign correspondent and writer. Her books explore how people cope once the conflict is over, how they deal with the death of loved ones and try to work together to mend their societies.Now, for the first time, she was being asked to write about her home country - quiet, peaceful Norway, with one of the lowest murder rates in the world. She was also asked to cover Breivik's trial in depth. In A Trial in Oslo Seierstad recounts the events of that terrible day and explores Breivik's background and personality. The story is told through numerous angles and sources, including testimonies from his parents, friends and family members, psychiatrists, doctors. It also tells the story of the aftermath - how Norwegians respond to the attacks and how the survivors fight to rebuild their lives.

Genre: History / Europe / Nordic Countries (fancy, right?)