Galicismos

By Thea Pettersson

> I am sitting in a small yellow papered press room with the Swedish novelist, play writer and columnist Jonas Hassen Khemiri. The sound of chattering and clapping can be heard in the background from the 180 000 visitors that the “Salon du Livre” had this year. We talk about language and identity in his two novels “One Eye Red” and “Montecore – The Silence of the Tiger”, humor, responsibilities and inspiration as an author and finally, about his ego.

> We start by talking about language and how it can be used to cover up ones identity. Even though neither of Jonas novels “One Eye Red” and “Montecore” is written in standard Swedish, the impression the readers get of the characters are completely different. In “One Eye Red” the main character Halim uses broken Swedish with wrong sentence structures and conjugations, while the character Kadir in “Montecore” uses a Swedish with strong influences from French. The effect is hard to bring up without sounding judgmental; however, the “immigrant” Swedish used by Halim is connected more to a lower status while a Swedish heavily influenced by French gives a more pompousness and exclusivity to the character and gives the impression of a literate person. Jonas answers by commenting on the issue of manipulation and how words are used to manipulate the view upon oneself. He tells that in both these novels the characters talk and write in this way because they are trying to become something they are not. In that way the words are there to cover up. Halim deliberately tries to write Swedish full of mistakes while Kadir in “Montecore” thinks he embellishes Swedish with the use of French words. Jonas states that the sad thing about both these characters is that they become very tragic by their manipulation of language.

> We go on talking about the inflated issue of keeping a standardized language. Jonas tells that whenever there is a strong political movement in one direction – he tries to do the opposite. “A lot of political movements at the moment are talking about the value of clean and proper language. And just to think of a language as clean or dirty is very fascinating because in reality all languages have an influence on each other. For instance Swedish consists of so many loanwords from German, French, English and the boundaries between languages and nationalities have always been much more flexible and fluent than we imagine them to be. So I think that is one of the things I’m trying to write about; trying to investigate these boundaries and to show that the black and white boundaries are very fictional.”

> Furthermore Jonas mentions that there are people that tell him that he writes funny books. However, he feels much more comfortable with the idea that he writes really sad books. He tells me that it is connected to how he is in life; he uses his language to cover up things and in his books, he uses humor in the same way. Meaning that it is there in a way to keep one from crying, to cover or lighten up the seriousness.

> As an author one has the power to reach out to many people. With this in mind, I ask Jonas if he feels a responsibility to bring up serious problems. He tells that “the moment you start feeling that responsibility – there’s a risk that you start writing really bad books”. Also, writing for the reader may result in a book that “will have a smell that is not very nice” (although do not worry – he appreciates having readers). He continues by saying; “if it is written in order for me to like it, then I don’t like it”. He also mentions that he tries to find issues to write about even though he has no idea what he feels about them, adding that; “I know that it is creepily hard to find a right answer and that’s what drives me to write about it”.

> Jonas started writing as it added something to life that he was missing. “This makes writing beautiful and amazing but also quite scary because what would happen if I didn’t write and would that mean that I would have a harder time living?” he speculates.

> We continue talking about his motivations for writing and what it is that inspires him. He describes himself as a very impatient person and explains how this restlessness encourages him to experiment with different styles and structures in his texts. He says that he tries to add a bit of energy in his books and try to make them a bit more dynamic by choosing different perspectives which makes the reader see the world in another light. He also reveals that what he is working on now is very different from his previous novels – so I guess we should thank his impatiens for a variety in his works and styles.

> In both novels one can find a writer named Jonas. The name Jonas is also supposed to be hidden behind different names in “Montecore”; for instance behind the rap artist “Ion carry-on”. Luckily for me Jonas ends my next question while I am trying to formulate one around this fact; “How big ego do I have?” he says laughing. He explains that in both novels he describes himself very much as an ass-hole and that this makes it okay. He also wants to show that a name is just a name and he tries to play around with the power of it.

> While wishing him good luck, Jonas kindly responds to my deep philosophical questions in an impulsive manner. What is:

Language – “a dichotomy unstable”; “un briseur de dichotomie”

Mother tongue to you – “home”

Sweden/Swedish to you – “almost home”

> To conclude I ask him if he feels a desire to express himself in a thoughtful and amusing way, for instance during interviews. He answers that he always tries to fake that he is smart and funny. I do not know how much he has faked during this interview. At any rate, my impression of him is that he is rightly clever and humorous. Finally, he states that in the end it is his books that are left behind him while he keeps on living. In that sense he cares more about the books and is happy to sacrifice himself for the stories; sounding like a true author to me.

Novels:

“One Eye Red” 2003

“Montecore – The Silence of the Tiger” 2006

“Invasion!” (A collection of plays and short stories)

Plays:

“Invasion!” 2008

“God Times Five” 2008

For more information about the author and other works, such as chronicles and short stories, visit his website: www.khemiri.se