For Swedish author and playwright Jonas Hassen Khemiri facing the blank page is always “a kind of revenge.” Hear why the acclaimed author – who has been praised by Joyce Carol Oates – considers starting anew as a chance to do even better.
“I like the panic of it, realising ‘OK, here I am again’, the feeling of doubt,” says Jonas Hassen Khemiri. But while the prospect of starting a new project can be daunting, the blank page is not only a challenging acquaintance, Hassen Khemiri explains. It holds “the sense of endless possibilities” and the promise that “I may not have succeeded yet, but maybe next time. There’s always that hope.”
Jonas Hassen Khemiri (b. 1978) is a Swedish author and playwright who is considered one of the most important writers of his generation in Sweden. His best-selling novels have been awarded multiple prizes, among others the prestigious P.O. Enquist Literary Prize for his second novel ‘Montecore: The Silence of the Tiger’, (2006), the 2015 August Prize for best Swedish Fiction Book of the Year for his third novel ‘Everything I don’t Remember’, 2015. His first play, ‘Invasion!’ was awarded a Village Voice Obie Award when it premiered in New York in 2011 and his play ‘≈(Almost Equal To)’ premiered in 2014 at Sweden’s National Theatre Dramaten in Stockholm to raving reviews. His work has been translated into more than 20 languages.
Jonas Hassen Khemiri was interviewed by Roxanne Bagheshirin Lærkesen during the Louisiana Literature festival at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark, in August 2016.
Camera: Klaus Elmer
Edited by: Kasper Bech Dyg
Produced by: Christian Lund
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2017
Supported by Nordea-fonden
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