'Deportations made foreign writers ask: Do I belong in Sweden?'

<p><strong>Not yet a member of The Local? <a href="https://www.thelocal.se/podcasts/podcast-offer" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Join now with this special offer for podcast listeners</a>. </strong></p><p>Gift Blessing is only 24 years old, but has already achieved an enormous amount. He is a rapper, an author, a newspaper columnist, and a poet.</p><p>He came to Sweden as a quota refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo as a young child. He broke through to public consciousness in 2021 with a bravura rap performance in Sweden&#39;s Got Talent (Talang).</p><p>Last month he was made Sweden&#39;s official reading ambassador with a mission to get young people reading.</p><p>And this week he is releasing an anthology of writing in English from writers from all around the world, but who are based in Stockholm.</p><p>This week&#39;s Sweden in Focus Extra features <strong>Gift Blessing</strong> in conversation with The Local&#39;s <strong>James Savage</strong>.</p><p><strong>READ ALSO:</strong></p><ul><li><strong><a href="https://www.thelocal.se/20251209/long-read-in-sweden-there-are-only-good-bad-ugly-and-evil-immigrants?tpcc=podcast-article" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">In Sweden, there are only good, bad, ugly and evil immigrants</a></strong> – a recent long read for The Local by Faisal Khan, one of the contributors to the new anthology, &#39;Upon All the Living&#39;.</li></ul><p>Thumbnail photo by Maja Brand.</p> <p>Become a member at <a target="_blank" rel="payment" href="https://www.thelocal.se/podcasts/podcast-offer?tpcc=padlock">https://www.thelocal.se/podcasts/podcast-offer?tpcc=padlock</a>.</p>

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