The Sisters

'One of the best novels I've ever read about the complexities of mixed heritage'

New Yorker

'Superb . . . one of those books you live inside and miss when it's over'

Isabella Hammad, author of Enter Ghost

'A moving appraisal of family, language, and the spiritual developments that accrue over a life'

Raven Leilani, author of Luster

'A thoroughly fascinating story about sibling rivalry, loyalty, and love'

Fredrik Backman, author of A Man Called Ove

'If you welcome this novel into your mind, it will warm and transform you'

Tess Gunty, author of the Rabbit Hutch

'Astonishing . . . every character - every sentence - is startlingly, indubitably alive'

Katie Kitamura, author of Intimacies

'[His] masterpiece . . . life overflows its pages'

Madeleine Thien, author of Do Not Say We Have Nothing

Meet the Mikkola sisters: Ina, Evelyn, and Anastasia. Their mother is a Tunisian carpet seller, their father a mysterious Swede who left them when they were young. Ina is tall, serious, a compulsive organizer. Evelyn is dreamy, magnetic, a smooth talker. And Anastasia is moody, chaotic, a shape-shifting presence, quick to anger.

Ina meets her future husband when she's dragged to a New Year's rave by her sisters, only to suffer the ultimate betrayal. Evelyn drifts through life before embarking on a wild career as an actress. And Anastasia runs off to Tunisia, where she falls in love with a woman who, years later, will transform her life.

Following the sisters from afar is Jonas, the son of a Swedish mother and a Tunisian father. Over the course of three decades, his life intersects with the sisters, from a chance encounter in Tunis to the scene of a fighter jet crash in Stockholm. When Evelyn disappears on a trip to New York, Jonas manages to track her down - and helps her to break the curse that has been looming over the Mikkolas for decades. In the process, a shocking revelation changes everything about who they think they are.

Narrated in six parts, each spanning a period ranging from a year to a day to a single minute, The Sisters is a big, vivid family saga of the highest order - an addictively entertaining tour de force.

A quilt in the winter, a fireplace of embers, a singing kettle, a blazing forest, a steaming bath, a controlled burn - what you hold in your hands generates every kind of heat. There is violence, and some of it burns, but its most consistent and miraculous energy - the energy radiating beneath every sentence of every page - is a kind of geothermal tenderness. Jonas Hassen Khemiri's The Sisters moves generation to generation, neighbour to neighbour, skin to skin, pulse to pulse. If you welcome this novel into your mind, it will warm and transform you -- Tess Gunty, Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize-winning author of The Rabbit Hutch
The Sisters is a novel of unsurpassed tenderness. It is about the power of stories, to make and break and finally heal us. Jonas Hassen Khemiri is a born storyteller, of rare and astonishing gifts. Every character - every sentence - is startlingly, indubitably alive -- Katie Kitamura, author of Intimacies
The Sisters is a thoroughly fascinating story about sibling rivalry, loyalty, and love, one that is about the microcosm of the family as much as it is about the bigger world. Jonas Hassen Khemiri is the very rare combination of a deep intellectual and a true storyteller, as smart as he is entertaining. He is an important voice, a curious mind, and a generous teacher to all of us who have tried to imitate him -- Fredrik Backman, author of A Man Called Ove
The Sisters is a moving appraisal of family, language, and the spiritual developments that accrue over a life. Jonas Hassen Khemiri ushers you through those developments with humanity and wit and illuminates complex familial intimacies with utter clarity -- Raven Leilani, author of Luster
The Sisters is a superb novel about the pangs and longings of sibling love, about being Arab in Sweden and Swedish in Tunisia, about the strange stories that sustain us and the long rush of time. Captivating and so full of life - one of those books you live inside and miss when it's over -- Isabella Hammad, author of Enter Ghost
The Sisters is Jonas Hassen Khemiri's masterpiece, a beautiful double helix of memory and imagination. Folding together Stockholm and New York, time and timelessness, self and other, it is an immersive, wondrous reading experience. Life overflows its pages -- Madeleine Thien, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Do Not Say We Have Nothing
An extraordinary achievement . . . this is the novel that I didn't know I was waiting for -- Adam Dalva, editor of Words without Borders
Momentous . . . I don't waver an instance when I say Jonas Hassen Khemiri is the greatest Swedish lyricist of a century -- Johan Renck, director of Chernobyl and Spaceman
Spanning over three decades and continents, Khemiri weaves an engaging and intricate tale about generational trauma, curses, loss and love with such ease it's almost provoking. I read it as if my own life depended on the outcome for these sisters. I laughed with them, cried with them, lived with them throughout it all. And when it ended, they stayed with me. It's astonishing that such a complex and epic story can be so easy to devour. One of those stories I wish I could read again for the first time. -- Lisa Ambjörn, writer of the Netflix hit Young Royals
In Scandinavia, Khemiri is easily one of the most respected and decorated authors of my generation. This book, his seventh, is a classic story about sibling rivalry, and it follows three chaotic and loving sisters over a period of thirty years . . . Khemiri, who is also of Swedish and Tunisian descent, lives and teaches in New York; he's a true citizen of the world, and he captures that experience in an exceptionally vivid way. This is one of the best novels I've ever read about the complexities of mixed heritage. At nearly seven hundred pages, the book is quite long, but Khemiri's language is propulsive - it possesses a flow and a tempo that makes you forget that you're reading -- Fredrik Backman New Yorker
Blending humor and pathos, Khemiri perfectly encapsulates the push and pull of living in two different and sometimes dueling cultures. It's a staggering achievement Publishers Weekly