I don’t need to know whether or not you have a relationship, the lawyer says. What I want to know is what has been said to the police, that’s what’s important, he says. I said that we haven’t lived together for the last six months, I say.Why? This makes it difficult, very difficult, he says. What are my chances? Said says. His face is so open, I have to turn away. Your chances?Difficult to say, says Farhat the lawyer. We have been married for three years, I say.

Anja falls in love with Said while she works at a detention centre. They are meant for each other, he says. We are very different, she says. He proposes, and they celebrate their wedding in Morocco.

Almost three years later, Anja’s father is dying, and she no longer lives with Said. But he sits with her at the hospital bed. In a few months, they will have been married long enough for Said to get his residence permit.

You can sleep here is a tender, passionate, and perhaps impossible love story, a novel about differences and about solidarity put to the test.

Praise for You Can Sleep Here:

“An important, topical and interesting novel […] a joy to read”
Dag og Tid

“Kriznik steers clear of all the clichés … Instead of a moralising and self-righteous text, the reader is offered low key depictions of believable people… In describing new love, the simple prose gives off a tone of naive feelings, the story is tender and sweet where it could have been excessive. When the story moves on to the more difficult time later in the relationship, it feels equally painful … This simple style is what makes You Can Sleep Here a successful novel”
Universitas

“Something is at stake in Kriznik’s novels. This time it is the permanent residency … The author gets close enough to her characters to provide a complex portrait of our times. Her intimate portrayal of people is effectively contrasted with a faceless system which puts people’s lives in danger. The implicit social critique is not compromised by the literary quality of the novel. Instead the nuances create an edge. Through well placed details like a long shower or a tax certificate with an expiry date, Kriznik is able to shed light on divisions and mechanisms used to keep immigrants down. She leads us far enough into the gaps between people to say something about the world outside …You Can Sleep Here is not indifferent realism for the sake of realism, but a book with a restless heart. A new and significant novel by a writer who will be interesting to follow”
Dagens Næringsliv