Jonas Hassen Khemiri

Jonas Hassen Khemiri (born 27 December 1978 in Stockholm) is an award-winning Swedish novelist and playwright. He has been named one of the most important Swedish writers of his generation.^[1]

Career

Khemiri was a student at Stockholm School of Economics (SSE) from the fall semester of 1999, where he pursued the master's program in business administration.

Khemiri's debut novel, Ett öga rött (One Eye Red), was published in 2003. It was met with rave reviews from critics, sold over 200,000 copies in Sweden and became the best-selling novel of any category in 2004.^[2]

Khemiri's second novel, Montecore: en unik tiger (Montecore - The Silence of the Tiger), received Sveriges Radio's Novel Prize (Sveriges Radios Romanpris) for Best Swedish Novel of 2007.^[3][4]

Khemiri's first play, Invasion!, was written for the Stockholm City Theatre. It was chosen for the 2007 Swedish Theater Biennial and has been performed in France, Germany, the UK, and Norway.^[5] Khemiri has also written the plays God Times Five for Riksteatern and We Who Are Hundred, which opened at Gothenburg City Theatre in 2009^[3] and won the Hedda Award, Norway's top theatrical award, for the best play of 2010.^[6]

Khemiri's novels have been translated into German, French, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Dutch, Hungarian, Italian, and Russian. Montecore: The Silence of the Tiger was published by Knopf in the US in 2011.^[3][7]

In 2013, Khemiri wrote an open letter to Sweden's Minister of Justice Beatrice Ask in response to a controversial immigration program, REVA. The letter, titled "Dear Beatrice Ask", was published in Sweden's biggest daily paper, Dagens Nyheter^[8] and became a social media phenomenon, with more than 120 000 likes on Facebook^[9] and more than half a million clicks on the article online.^[10] The letter was written as part of a debate about racial profiling in Sweden.

Personal life

Khemiri's father hails from Tunisia and his mother is Swedish.^[11] His younger brother is actor Hamadi Khemiri.^[12]

Bibliography

• Ett öga rött (novel, 2003)
• Montecore : en unik tiger (novel, 2006)
• Invasion! : pjäser, noveller, texter (2008)
• Så som du hade berättat det för mig (ungefär) om vi hade lärt känna varandra innan du dog (short story, 2011)
• Jag ringer mina bröder (novel, 2012)
• Allt jag inte minns (novel, 2015)

Awards

• Borås Tidning's Debutant Prize (Borås tidnings debutantpris) for best Swedish literary debut (2004)
• Per Olov Enquist's Prize (P O Enquists pris) for young authors on the way up in Europe (2006)^[13]
• VI magazine's Literary Prize (Tidningen VI:s litteraturpris) (2006)^[14]
• Colombine scholarship (2006)^[15]
• Tidningen CITY’s literary award (2006)^[15]
• Sveriges Radio's Novel Prize (Sveriges Radios Romanpris) (2006)
• Stipend from the Gerard Bonnier Fund of the Swedish Academy (2007, shared with Pauline Wolff)
• The Bellman Prize (Bellmanpriset) of the Swedish Academy (2007)^[16]
• Swedish Radio’s Prize for best Swedish Short Story (Sveriges Radios Novellpris) for "Oändrat oändlig" (2008)^[17]
• Hedda Award for best play (2010)
• John Fante Literary Prize (2010)^[18]

International residencies

• Ledig House, Hudson, New York (2004)
• International Residency for Emerging Playwrights at Royal Court, London (2006)
• DAAD, Writer in Residence, Berlin (2009)

References

External links

• Official homepage