I Was Here. The First Arrest

2008

Writer
Genre
fiction
 
young adult novel
Original
Language
Estonian
Publisher
Eesti Päevaleht
ISBN
9789949431502
Year
2008
Pages
318
Age
16+

Synopsis

Rights sold: Hungarian, Latvian, Macedonian, Russian

The story tells of 17-year-old Rass' development into a drug dealer, which he recorded three years later in police custody. The main character lives apart from his parents, and supports himself with casual work and petty theft. The environment where he grows up, in a dormitory suburb on the outskirts of town, is characterized by violence, crime, suicide, dysfunctional family relations, and alcoholic parents. Unlike his friends, Rass studies at high school, and dreams of a normal family life and a job as a doctor. Getting involved in the drug business almost by chance, he starts using methamphetamine, and commits the wildest acts imaginable while he is high on it. Events lead him into involvement with the mafia, and the lives of Rass and his pals are in serious danger. To pay off his mafia debts, he becomes involved in more crimes.

The book is energetic, tense, full of prison slang and obscenities, and at the same time very painful and raw. Even young people that are hardly likely to pick up a book will read it with interest.

Film: I Was Here, 2008

Translations

Jас бев тука

Henno, Krstevski, 2015 , 160 lk

Itt jártam : az első letartóztatás

Hungarian

Henno, Rácz, 2010 , 196 lk

Šeit biju es. Pirmais arests

Latvian

Henno, Saks, Grīnberga, 2006 , 193 lk

More info

1st edition 2005, 200 pp, ISBN 9985956524

Awards

Award:
2004 Writers' Union Novel Competition, winner