Join the reading party! Also literally. The “sisters” start a party. It is New Year’s Eve 1999-2000. Ina (24), Evelyn (21) and Anastasia (19) have managed to sneak past the endless queue into the coolest party. They are sisters. A bit similar. But mostly different. Clever Ina likes sensible planning. Charismatic Evelyn always ends up in the center. Will Anastasia has enormous, outgoing energy. Ina knows how such parties usually end: She goes home early. The others stay. But this evening something unexpected happens. Ina meets a man. Who is interested in her! Not in her sisters! How will this end? The Swedish author Jonas Hassen Khemiri has effectively hooked me. I will be hanging there. TOGETHER WITH THE CROWN PRINCESS: Jonas Hassen Khemiri has been very successful as an author, ever since his debut with “Ett öga rött” in 2003. Here Khemiri is with Crown Princess Mette-Marit in 2016. Photo: Ole Kristian Årdal / news Lifet med stor L “Søstrene” is a great novel. Quite concretely, and in a figurative sense. Over 650 pages. Seven timetables, plus a look back and a look ahead. Four main characters. A bunch of extras, with and without ties between them. We are going to Stockholm, Tunisia and New York. But also visiting Swedish cottages by the coast, weddings in southern Germany, cafes in small-town Sweden, a quick trip to Paris. Weekdays and public holidays. Random encounters and planned meetings. It’s about being family. Be friends. About the places and what they mean to us, and about the lines we draw through life. The connections we seek. What ideas do we bring with us? And why? Khemiri write about love. About envy. Sorrow. About the travels and experiences. Trauma. But also dream maniacs. Rejoice! Briefly summarized: “Søstrene” is a novel about Life itself, with a big L. Playing with “the truth” The most important of the four main characters – with the three sisters in joint second place – is called Jonas Khemiri. Random? Not exactly. “Søstrene” is also a book that plays a lot with poetry and truth. The author Khemiri has given the narrator Khemiri many traits that make the two very similar. Like name. Similar appearance. Similar family background. Equal stay in the same countries. A smart move. What happens then is that I more easily also buy the rest of the story as “true”. Like “really”. But can what an author – or anyone else – tells be true? Or will a narrative always be just that – a narrative, unlike the real world. Indirectly, these are the kinds of questions Khemiri grapples with. Such thoughts he opens up to. Although he primarily seems preoccupied with telling a good story. “American” novel “A good read”, they call such great stories in the USA. Or “a great American novel”. The “sisters” meet both requirements. Even if the book is Swedish. The novel is right enough in New York in several parts. But the writing style is also “epic American”. Khemiri hectares joint on joint. With a comma. Not full stop. Like when Jonas is eleven years old, and his father left the family. The sentence starts before and ends after this excerpt: “from now on, without dad in the family photos, our existence in our white, tennis-playing, piano-practicing, hymn-singing, white, middle-class Swedish family would be transformed into a mystery, we looked as if we was adopted, we looked like we belonged somewhere else, and from this moment on we wish we were somewhere else, at least I, I still want to be somewhere else, wherever I am, I have a dream of being somewhere else, where I can fit in better, another country, another city, another book, another world” RECEIVED THE MOST PRIZES: Jonas Hassen Khemiri is one of the most celebrated Swedish authors of his generation . He has been awarded the August prize and PO Enquist’s prize, and has been nominated for several international literature prizes. The novels are called “Montecore” (2006), “I call my brothers” (2012), “Everything I don’t remember” (2015) and “Pappaklausulen” (2018). Photo: Stephanie De Sakutin / AFP Forbanna sisters Jonas’ relationship with their father is an important theme throughout the novel. Roots and identity too. Jonas knows his way around. Annleis. Only in brief glimpses does he belong. The sisters Ina, Evelyn, and Anastasia have a complex relationship with their mother. And to the future. They live with a curse on them. Mother said so. The curse is that everything they love will be taken from them. Jonas is most fascinated by the curse. And of the sisters. He hears about them for the first time when he is five or six years old. When he is eleven, he meets them. The sisters then move on. But Jonas is still fascinated by them. Chapter two tells Jonas’s story, in the first person. In a quarter of a chapter we hear about one of the sisters, in the third person. In between, the two threads – Jonas and the sisters – intertwine. Equality and community Here there are parallels and reflections. They are all Swedish-Tunisian, with one parent from each country. About the same age. For a while they lived in the same district in Stockholm. Both Jonas and one of the sisters are in Tunisia. Jonas and another sister are visiting New York. All the sisters have characteristics that Jonas recognizes in himself. But could it be that the corpses are there because it is Jonas who tells about the sisters? “Søstrene” is a novel about looking for community. About feeling fundamentally lonely. How close are we to each other? Time and the future It is also a novel about time. About the feeling that she is going faster and faster. That the really important, defining experiences are getting longer and longer. Khemiri allowed the theme to be reflected in the structure of the novel: He cuts across seven years, but tells about a shorter and shorter part of that year as the sisters and Jonas get older. Another smart move, which works. Could the novel be shorter than 656 pages? Yes. But he could also be longer. Does it happen that Khemiri explains a little more than he needs to? Yes. But it is easy to forgive. He let me discover a lot myself too. “Søstrene” is a rich and generous narrative. Here are lovely individual scenes. It is exciting to explore the lines Khemiri draws through time, through cities, through life. The future we know nothing about, “Søstrene” reminds us. So there is little point in living in fear. Life – with a capital L – is ongoing now. Live well! news reports Photo: Gyldendal Title: “Søstrene” Author: Jonas Hassen Khemiri Original title: “Systrarna” Translator: Andreas Eilert Østby Number of pages: 656 Published: 2024 ISBN/EAN: 9788205595040 Hello! I am a literary critic at news, with a particular interest in Norwegian and translated fiction. Feel free to read my message about the historical novels “Xiania” by Lotta Elstad and “Skråpånatta” by Lars Mytting, or “Unwanted behavior” by Olaug Nilssen. Feel free to write to me!
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“The Sisters” by Jonas Hassen Khemiri – Reviews and recommendations
