MY MOTHER SAID MY NAME

by Mads H. Odgaard ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 13, 2026

A refugee from Afghanistan returns as a trained assassin on a quest for revenge in Odgaard’s novel.

In the summer of 2021, Mina Mohammad witnesses her mother’s death. The Taliban has assumed power in Afghanistan, making it illegal for women to teach. Mina’s father, an interpreter, seeks asylum in Denmark, but before the family can make their escape, Mina’s mom is kicked, beaten, and stoned by a mob led by Abdul Sayed, who declares her guilty of blasphemy. “I saw the man responsible for the stoning,” Mina later recalls. “And…I would never forget his face.” Still grieving, Mina, her father, and her sister Marlize board a plane bound for Copenhagen; after a short stay there, they relocate to Manhattan, where Mina’s dad opens an Afghan restaurant. Mina discovers an affinity for Hans Christian Andersen and Søren Kierkegaard, and she befriends an elderly gentleman, Mr. Mendelsohn, who lives in the apartment above theirs. In the course of their long walks, Mr. Mendelsohn (whose own wife fled Afghanistan in the wake of an extremist takeover) reveals his family’s long history of persecution: His maternal great-grandparents left Russia following antisemitic pogroms in the 1880s, and much of his family perished under the Nazis. Heeding his father’s words, “Antisemitism will return to Europe. Mark my words,” Mr. Mendelsohn sought safety in America. Having grown up in Afghanistan, Mina is unfamiliar with the Holocaust, and she’s shocked to learn about Hitler’s campaign of extermination during WWII. Following the attacks of October 7, 2023, campus protests spring up in defense of Hamas at Columbia, where Mina is studying international affairs. She begins to fear that antisemitism has returned, this time masquerading as social justice. Meanwhile, a mysterious woman named Mrs. Martin recruits Mina for a secret mission that could get dangerous. In the guise of a revenge narrative, Odgaard has written a novel of ideas with impressively heady reflections on capitalism, the cyclical nature of evil, and the tendency of ideologies that center colonialist oppression to become oppressive. Citing economist Thomas Piketty, Mr. Mendelsohn says that Western centrist parties have “stopped representing the political interests of the working class,” catering instead to professionals and immigrants, thereby allowing the parties to be overtaken by the radical left. His cultural and political meditations are woven so seamlessly that the book rarely feels didactic; discussions of 20th-century European history emerge organically amid Mina’s attempts to better understand the new world confronting her. Her circumstances, as a recent immigrant befriending a Jewish nonagenarian in the wake of the 2023 campus protests, make her the ideal protagonist for the story Odgaard is telling. Yet the final quarter of the book, in which Mina returns to Afghanistan as a CIA-trained assassin, feels rushed and perfunctory. Stories of this nature require a certain level of build-up to convey the dangers facing the protagonist, but events proceed at such a rapid clip that the narrative never acquires the necessary tension. That said, nesting the characters’ discussions within a spy thriller framework proves an inspired choice: It both deepens what can often be a formulaic genre and renders compelling what might otherwise have been dry ruminations on current events.

A philosophical thriller with much to say about radical campus politics and the nature of antisemitism.

Pub Date: May 13, 2026

ISBN: 9788797535882

Page Count: 380

Publisher: Grøndal

Review Posted Online: June 30, 2026

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

THRILLER | POLITICAL, MILITARY & TERRORISM | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE