Jonas Hassen Khemiri is a Swedish author and playwright on the brink of international importance. His latest export is the play Invasion!, which in a hilarious yet disturbing way deals with identity, race and language.
Jonas Hassen Khemiri has made quite a literary impression as novelist and playwright since his 2003 debut. Photo: Sandra Qvist/Scanpix
“Invasion! is a study of language and its power,” Khemiri says. “It also looks at the idea of truth, and how it is interpreted and communicated.” Identity and ethnicity are also central themes in the play.
Having started out as a novelist, Khemiri was inspired to find a new way of storytelling and developed another side of his writing with the play Invasion!.
In Sweden the play was an immediate success when it opened in 2006. It now conquers Europe. On November 15, a young theater maker or creative team will be awarded the chance to produce a translated version of Khemiri’s Invasion! at Soho Theatre in London in March 2009. The play has already run in Germany, and soon opens in Norway. And in 2009 it’s time for France.
A shocking start
Khemiri, who has a Tunisian father and a Swedish mother, shocked the Swedish literary world in 2003 with his debut novel One Eye Red (Ett öga rött).
In that book, readers meet Halim, a teenage boy struggling with his ethnic identity. Although he was born in Stockholm, Halim feels like an outsider because his parents are from Morocco.
“I don’t believe that the world consists of eternally different cultures. For me, there are no easy explanations of anyone’s identity. This is why I’ve written so much about the subject. For instance, many people would like me to ‘choose sides,’ and call myself one thing or another. But I won’t. I have a North African-Swedish identity,” Khemiri says.
Hype, controversy and success
One Eye Red offered the public a new form of writing that caused literary Sweden and the rest of the country, to take notice.
Khemiri used language patterns reminiscent of the Swedish spoken by many Swedish immigrants, with sentence structure and grammar that don’t always follow standard Swedish language rules.
All of sudden it seemed that the whole nation had an opinion about the book, and about Khemiri. Debates raged on a number of topics, including whether it was “appropriate” or “responsible” to write or even publish a book that was seen to parody (for some) or glorify (for others) “immigrant Swedish.”
One Eye Red sold over 200,000 copies in Sweden to become the best-selling paperback of 2004. A film based on the book opened in Swedish cinemas in 2007.
The film based on Khemiri's debut novel One Eye Red opened in 2007. Photo: Nina Varumo/Scanpix
“I’m really tired of talking about One Eye Red,” says Khemiri. “Of course, it was wonderful to be acknowledged for my work. But there was so much hype surrounding that book. It caused a lot of strong and often negative reactions.
“At the same time it is interesting that language, and words, can create such strong reactions. It goes to show that there is a political, subversive potential in language, which has always fascinated me.”
Playing God
Five Times God (Fem gånger gud) is a new play written by Khemiri, which opened in October 2008 and is being performed in cities around Sweden.
The play is about Rolf, a drama teacher who tries to get a few high school students to rehearse and perform August Strindberg’s classic theater piece A Dream Play. The students want nothing to do with Strindberg, and prefer to instead to play God, and express their own dreams on stage.
“I really enjoyed writing Five Times God. Language is the true star of this play,” says Khemiri.
Praise for second novel
His second novel, Montecore: A Unique Tiger examines the impossibility of writing a simple version of a disappeared father’s life. Published in 2006, the book was widely praised by literary critics.
“I’d say that writing Montecore: A Unique Tiger is the thing that I’m most proud of,” Khemiri says. “I really felt like I achieved something when it was finished. A lot has happened in my life in the five years since my first book was published. I feel like I’m an entirely different author now.”
According to Jonas Hassen Khemiri, language is the true star of his play Five Times God. His brother Hamadi Khemiri is one of the actors in the Swedish production. Photo: Paul Hansen/Scanpix
Montecore: A Unique Tiger has won a number of awards, including Sveriges Radios Romanpris, a radio listener’s award for the best novel of 2007. The listener jury’s motivation read: "Montecore is a beautiful, melancholic but also wonderfully funny book that depicts Sweden in a unique light…”
Khemiri’s earlier literary works have been translated from Swedish into a number of languages including French, English, German and Dutch. Knopf will translate Montecore: A Unique Tiger into English for publication in 2009.
Dream job
“I am turning 30 this year, and I started looking through my old journals from my teen years,” Khemiri says. “Back then I had three career choices. First, I wanted to be a world-famous DJ. My second choice was to be a lawyer fighting for the rights of ‘the people.’ My third choice was to be a writer. So, I guess you could say that I’ve managed to make my dream come true.”
Have you read anything by Jonas Hassen Khemiri? What did you think? Feel free to post a comment below!
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Tsemaye Opubor Hambraeus
Tsemaye Opubor Hambraeus is a Swedish-American freelance journalist based in Stockholm. She spends her free time hunting for all kinds of interesting books, in the Swedish capital’s many antiquarian and second hand bookshops.
The author alone is responsible for the opinions expressed in this article.
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