The book that changed Norway’s view of immigrants

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 20 August 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

In 2010, a book came out in Norway that transformed the way people looked at paperless immigrants. The author, a 25-year-old Russian woman, fled North Ossetia as a child with her parents. They were never granted asylum, yet she managed to earn a university degree and eventually had to make a choice: continue living in hiding or face deportation.

Her book triggered a government crisis and a change to Norway's immigration regulations. Lars Bevanger speaks to the author, Maria Amelie.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest; the disastrous D-Day rehearsal; and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.

(Photo: Maria Amelie. Credit: BBC)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, welcome to witness history from the BBC World Service with me, Lashbevanger.
0:10.4	I'm taking you back to 2010 when an unusual book by a young Russian woman hit the shelves in bookstores across Norway.
0:18.8	It would transform Norwegian's attitude to paperless
0:22.4	immigrants, trigger a government crisis and lead to a change in immigration regulations.
0:29.1	I was born in North Othusetia and lived there while I was a child. And then around 2000,
0:36.2	my family ended up as refugees in Norway Maria Amali was 12 when her family
0:42.8	fled her childhood home in Vladikavkaz the capital of north of Setsia the Russian republic borders
0:50.0	Chechnya and had been affected by regional violence and instability for some time.
0:55.7	Maria's father had been a successful businessman.
0:58.5	But, she says, like what happened to many others deemed to be on the wrong side of the
1:03.0	political leadership at the time, the states seized all their assets.
1:07.6	Her family also lived with the threat of kidnapping or even worse. There was not a lot.
1:12.5	I remember or really understood of what was happening, but I also felt that was not a place we
1:17.7	could survive. The family of three spent their first year in an asylum centre south of the
1:22.8	Norwegian capital, Oslo, during which time Maria joined the local school.
1:32.8	Me and my mom went to visit the local principal of the local school, and then we persuaded him to let me study, and then I would come back after the summer and speak fluent Norwegian.
1:39.4	That was his challenge to me. So we kind of made a deal and then I started studying and I stayed there for two
1:46.3	years and during those two years our asylum application was rejected. The family knew this meant
1:53.1	they could be deported at any time. With the support of the local community they decided to stay
1:59.1	and somehow flew under the radar of the Norwegian
2:01.9	authorities. Maria graduated and secured a place at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology
2:08.1	in Trondheim. Her master's degree in science, society and technology were the only papers
	...

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