The Sisters
A Novel

Quotes

"One of this summer’s most buzzed-about novels . . . The effect is startling; you age along with the Mikkolas, feeling the decades fly by as though it were your own life, your own family memories and experiences going past." —Nilanjana Roy, Financial Times

"[A] gripping, ambitious novel of love and lineage." —Isle McElroy, Vulture

"Wondrous . . . 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 (starred review)

"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, neighbor to neighbor, skin to skin, pulse to pulse. If you welcome this novel into your mind, it will warm and transform you." —Tess Gunty, National Book Award–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 Audition and 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, New York Times–bestselling author of A Man Called Ove and Anxious People

“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 and The Parisian

"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, author of Do Not Say We Have Nothing

"The Sisters is a momentous, reverberating tale sprung out of the heartbreaking beauty of the human condition. The voice, in and of it self, is so effortlessly crafted that the profound relentlessness of the text creeps up from behind like impossible barometric shifts. Thus, I don't waver an instant when I say Jonas Hassen Khemiri is the greatest Swedish lyricist of a century." —Johan Renck

"The Sisters is an extraordinary achievement, at once ambitious and personal, straddling the line between reality and fiction, investigating language itself. The Mikkola sisters are an indelible creation, and Jonas Hassen Khemiri is an ingenious guide through the complex saga of their lives. His trickster charm is matched by his keen insight into human nature. This is the novel that I didn't know I was waiting for." —Adam Dalva

“I read this novel 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.” —Lisa Ambjörn

Awards

• The New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year
• Carnegie Medal
• New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Year
• National Book Awards - Longlist
• CPL: Chicago Public Library Best of the Best
• Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year
• New Yorker Best Books of the Year