Jonas Hassen Khemiri

Jonas Hassen Khemiri (born 27 December 1978) is a Swedish writer.

He is the author of six novels, seven plays, and a collection of essays, short stories and plays.

His work has been translated into more than 25 languages.

He has received the August Prize for fiction and a Village Voice Obie Award for best script.

Khemiri's debut novel, Ett öga rött (One Eye Red), was published in 2003.

It sold over 200,000 copies in Sweden, was adapted into a movie and became the best-selling novel of any category in 2004.

Khemiri's first play, Invasion!, premiered at the Stockholm City Theatre in 2006.

Khemiri's second novel, Montecore: en unik tiger (Montecore - The Silence of the Tiger), received the Sveriges Radio Award for Best Swedish Novel of 2007.

It was a finalist for the August Prize and translated into more than 20 languages.

In the US, Montecore was translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles and published by Knopf and the New York Times described the novel as "funny, ambitious and inventive. Also black: rage and tragedy pulse beneath the fireworks."

It was chosen for the 2007 Swedish Theater Biennial and has since then been performed in 12 countries.

Khemiri's second play Fem gånger Gud (God Times Five) toured Sweden in 2008 and the third play, Vi som är hundra (The Hundred We Are), premiered at Gothenburg City Theatre in 2009.

In 2009 Khemiri released Invasion!, a collection of short stories, essays and plays.

The production at Thalia Theater in Hamburg ran from 2009–2016.

In Norway the play won the Hedda Award, Norway's top theatrical award, for best play of 2010.

In 2011, the novel was chosen by the critics at Dagens Nyheter as one of the top 10 works of fiction, published in Sweden in 2000–2010.

The first US production of Invasion! was produced by the Play Company, and in 2011, the play received a Village Voice Obie Award for best script.

It was published in English by Samuel French and in German by Theater Heute.

Apatiska för nybörjare (Apathy for Beginners), Khemiri's fourth play, premiered at the big stage of Folkteatern in Gothenburg in 2011 and has been performed in Italy, Norway and Germany.

SVT adapted the play for Swedish television.

Khemiri's third novel, Jag ringer mina bröder (I Call My Brothers), was published in 2012.

It was adapted for television by SVT.

In 2013 Khemiri adapted the novel Jag ringer mina bröder (I Call My Brothers) into a play.

It toured Sweden with the National Swedish Touring Theatre, had a second premier at the Stockholm City Theatre and has been performed in Norway, Denmark, Germany, the UK and Australia.

Khemiri's sixth play, ≈ [ungefär lika med] (≈[Almost Equal To ]) premiered at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in 2014.

Khemiri's fourth novel, Allt jag inte minns (Everything I Don't Remember) was published in 2015.

It became a national best-seller and received Sweden's most prestigious literary award, the August Prize, for best fiction.

The novel has been translated into more than 25 languages.

In the UK, the play was staged by Volta International Festival at the Arcola Theatre in 2015 and at the Gate Theatre in 2016.

It was published in English by Oberon Books.

In 2015, Khemiri received the Expressen Theatre Prize.

Joyce Carol Oates chose it as one of her three favourite books of 2016, calling it "enigmatic" in the Times Literary Supplement.

In 2017 he became the first Swedish writer to have a short story published in the New Yorker.

Khemiri's novel The Family Clause (FSG) was awarded the French Prix Médicis and was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Khemiri moved to New York in 2021 for a Cullman Fellowship at The New York Public Library and currently teaches in the Creative Writing program at NYU.

In 2023 he was a Ben Belitt Distinguished Visiting Writer at Bennington College.

Khemiri studied literature at Stockholm University and international economics at the Stockholm School of Economics.

Masha Gessen picked it as her favourite book of 2017 for Politico.

Pappaklausulen (The Family Clause (FSG) was published in 2018. It was awarded the Prix Médicis, France's highest honor for books in translation, and was a finalist for the National Book Award in the US.

Khemiri moved to New York with his family in 2021, to write a new novel called The Sisters.