The Family Clause

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. – Nikita Lalwani
A bold and remarkable novel - a marvel of form and imagination that is also miraculously full of heart and compassion. – Dinaw Mengestu
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. – Boyd Tonkin * Spectator *
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. – Catherine Menon * Guardian *
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. – Tabish Khair * Times Literary Supplement *
An exceptionally well-constructed novel. * Irish Times *
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. * Publishers Weekly *
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. – Joshua Furst
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. – Herman Koch
Behold the great innovator of Swedish literature, with a unique ability to fill his prose with energy and vigour. * Jönköpings-Posten *

Jonas Hassen Khemiri is the author of five novels, six plays and a collection of plays, essays and short stories. Among his many honours are the August Prize, the highest literary award for Swedish literature; the Per Olov Enquist Literary Prize; the Bor s Tidning Award for Best Literary Debut Novel; and an Obie Award. His novels have been translated into more than thirty languages, and his plays have been performed by more than one hundred companies around the world. He lives in Stockholm, Sweden.

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