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Jonas Hassen Khemiri

News 2020

 

  • March 29: Discussion at the official opening of the new Deichman main library, in Oslo, Norway (CANCELLED due to Corona).
  • April 20-26: Bogota Book Fair, Bogotá, Colombia (CANCELLED due to Corona).
  • May 15: Seminar in London (POSTPONED due to Corona).
  • Summer 2020: The Family Clause (Pappaklausulen) will be published in English, by FSG in the US and Harvill Secker, in the UK. Translation by Alice Menzies.

The Family Clause is a novel about a family on the verge of collapse, by the critically acclaimed Swedish author of Montecore

“The son did as he was told. All his bloody life, he has done as he has been told. Time to change that, he thinks, grabbing a pen. He doesn’t write that this will be the last time his father stays here. He doesn’t write that he wants to break the father clause. Instead, he writes: ‘Welcome, Dad. Hope you had a good flight’.”

A grandfather who lives abroad returns home to visit his adult children. The son is a failure. The daughter is having a baby with the wrong man. Only the grandfather is perfect—at least, according to himself. But over the course of ten intense days, relationships unfold and painful memories resurface. The grandfather is confronted by his past. The daughter is faced with an impossible choice. The son tries to write himself free. Something has to give.

Per a longstanding family agreement, the grandfather has maintained his Swedish residency by coming to stay with his son every six months. Can this clause be renegotiated, or will it chain the family to its past forever? Through a series of quickly changing perspectives, Jonas Hassen Khemiri evokes an intimate portrait of a chaotic and perfectly normal family, deeply wounded by the death of a child and the disappearance of a father.

  • August 2020: Edinburgh book festival, UK (CANCELLED due to Corona).
  • September 2020: A brilliant review of The Family Clause is published in Times Literary Supplement, by Tabish Khair. 
  • October 2020: The Family Clause has been chosen as a finalist for a NATIONAL BOOK AWARD (US)!

Then