Flat lay of Scandinavian fiction books against textiles.

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Reading lists

10 must-read Scandinavian novels

Jonas Hassen Khemiri

Alice Menzies

A beautiful study of familial need and mess, in which the universal and the particular play footsie with each other. Deft, artful, but above all insightful till it hurts, this is Khemiri’s best yet.

A bold and remarkable novel - a marvel of form and imagination that is also miraculously full of heart and compassion.

Absent fathers, wayward children, generational strife and the sheer fatigue of new parenthood... Khemiri's prose has a zing and bite stylishly served by Alice Menzies's pacy, idiomatic translation...The Family Clause [has] an epic, as well as a comic, buoyancy.

The dynamics of each relationship are superbly complex, and Khemiri's wry, comic touch gives a lightness to the inevitability as the children follow in their father's footsteps.

Excellent... Exquisitely translated by Alice Menzies... What Khemiri achieves is not just an engrossing narrative but the complex portrait of a family that is both identifiable and distinctive, normal and strange.

Satisfying . . . Khemiri succeeds at creating an infectious sense of melancholia as the poisonous patriarch is forced to reckon with the truth. In a slow build of quotidian moments, Khemiri constructs a familiarly flawed universe that lays bare what it means to be human.

The Family Clause vibrates with rueful humour and quiet wisdom. The more you get to know the characters contained within it, the more you see how tremendously large Jonas Hassen Khemiri's heart must be. His redemptive vision is rare and needed in these dark times.

I was drawn into this fascinating story right from the beginning and couldn't let loose for days after I had put down The Family Clause. And now, some weeks later, I know I will never forget the grandfather, the son who is a father, the sister, or the girlfriend. They are here to stay in my mind, like those other fictional characters you never meet in real life, but who you would recognize on the street the minute you saw them. Their personalities are far from perfect, but because of that, you love them all the more for who they are.

Behold the great innovator of Swedish literature, with a unique ability to fill his prose with energy and vigour.

Smart and simple, with greatness hidden in the detail, in the patterns of human behaviour that are exposed, The Family Clause is Khemiri’s best novel yet.

A rich tale, characterised by moments of real pain and flowing, beautiful language... a writer who should not be missed.

Khemiri devises a portrait that looks into the darkest recesses of family life, and he does so with great compassion. Our daily travails and subtle humiliations are revealed to us in both quiet tragedy and farcical comedy. These are the parents we never wanted to be and probably all - in one way or another - ended up becoming. Seeing ourselves so clearly makes this compulsively readable.

Dr Bryce Lease, Royal Holloway, University of London

A great deal of recognition and a great deal of humour. I laughed often and wholeheartedly.

A subtle uprising, an understated process of liberation and a tender defence of the trials of attempting to hold a family together... It is full of empathy and subtle humour.

Jonas Hassen Khemiri steps on the gas as he portrays the stresses and betrayals of life with young children. In his new novel, the recognition factor is a source of both laughter and discomfort.

A tender, shimmering novel that moves effortlessly yet reaches so far, that covers betrayal, loyalty and unwritten rules... it is a pure vitamin shot for its readers.

'A bold and remarkable novel...full of heart and compassion' Dinaw Mengestu 
 
A bad-tempered grandfather, now living abroad, is back in Stockholm to see his adult children. The son is a failure, the daughter is having a baby with the wrong man, and their mother is a heartless deserter. Only he, the patriarch, is perfect - according to himself, at least. Over ten intense days, the strained relationships of this chaotic but entirely normal family unfold, and painful memories begin to resurface. Something has to give. But the son is duty-bound to his father by a murky, years-old agreement - can it be renegotiated, or will it bind everyone to the past for ever? 
 
'The dynamics of each relationship are superbly complex, and Khemiri's wry, comic touch gives a lightness to the inevitability as the children follow in their father's footsteps' Guardian 
 
'Excellent...the complex portrait of a family that is both identifiable and distinctive, normal and strange' TLS

Jonas Hassen Khemiri

Articles featuring Jonas Hassen Khemiri

10 must-read Scandinavian novels

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