Jonas Hassen Khemiri

Jonas Hassen Khemiri, born 1978, is an award-winning Swedish author. He made a celebrated debut in 2003 with Ett öga rött/One Eye Red, which sold over 200.000 copies in Sweden and became the best-selling paperback of any category in 2004. The novel received the Borås Tidning award for best literary debut and was later adapted into a movie.

Khemiri's second novel, Montecore, was published to unanimous raving reviews in 2006. In strong international competition it was awarded 2006 year's P O Enquist Prize. It was also nominated for the August literary award and received the Swedish Radio's award for best novel.

Jonas Hassen Khemiri has also established himself as a playwright. His first play Invasion! was written for Stockholm City Theatre and played two seasons of sold out performances in 2006. So far it has been performed in France, Germany (at 6 theatres), Great Britain and Norway. In March 2008 it opened at the Münchner Kammarspiele and received splendid reviews. The play was printed in the May -08 issue of Theater Heute. Khemiri's second play Fem gånger Gud/God Times Five
toured all over Sweden with Riksteatern and was also produced by Stockholm City Theatre. His latest play, Vi som är hundra/We Who Are Hundred, premiered at Gothenburg City Theatre in September 2009. It recently had a celebrated premier in Norway and will soon open at the prestigious Thalia Theater in Hamburg.

Before becoming an author Khemiri studied Literature and International Economics in Paris and Stockholm. His father is Tunisian and his mother is Swedish. He currently lives and works somewhere between Stockholm and Berlin.

Translation rights to Khemiri's novels have so far been sold to: Knopf in the US, Piper Verlag in Germany, Le Serpent a Plumes in France, De Geus in the Netherlands, Johnny Kniga in Finland, Gyldendal in Denmark and Norway, Inostrannaya Literatura in Russia and Odiseja in Serbia.