A lot of are familiar in the Jonas Hassen Khemiris new short story ”the Last supper”. Both in the foreground and background are clear signs of a complicated fadersrelation, here is a precise balance between linguistic precision and unexpected associationsbanor, and so it is about a man who himself happens to write on a short story. It is the themes and characteristics that go again in the Khemiris authorship.
But in another respect is the novel of quite unusual – it is written on behalf of the provincial government, to the launch of a new telephone line for the aggressors are. ”Choose to stop” called the initiative, which began in February and focuses on helping people to stop putting violence in close relationships.
the short Story is about a dad who is also a brother-in-law, to the main character in Jonas Hassen Khemiris latest novel ”Pappaklausulen”. The father is in other words, the manipulative but invisible other party in the custody battle. In the ”Last supper” comes, he emerges from the shadows when Khemiri tells the story from the beginning. What happens before the first battle?
” It was just when I was about to say goodbye to the ”Pappaklausulen” for a couple of months ago, I was contacted by the County board: ViIl you write a short story about violence in close relationships on the basis of a person who is in the ”Pappaklausulen”? As a writer, you can get a lot of strange requests, and I usually say no because I have full up with my own deadline. Here, there was a very clear framework for the project.
” Partly because it is incredibly important, partly because it felt hard. As the author goes, I started on the technical challenges. Here, the task was to appeal to a potentially violent person without the text is didactic, that through the story and get in front of all men with violent tendencies to call and talk about the violence instead of exercising it.
– It has felt like a balancing act. It is terrible to read about the violence endpoint. ”He bit me in the back”, ”he killed my dog”, ”he hit me to the bones was”… It is very easy to agree that it is terrible, but how does it start? I have been told in several places that all violent relationships begin in the psychological violence. It can be about control over the economy, to criticize the clothing, to gradually isolate their partner from friends and family.
– If you only read the testimonies of violence transformed the perpetrator into monsters. Then you will never be able to see that even you have violence and control within you. We need to understand that this guy walks around with the feeling that he is a very good guy, he has done his oral sex, he has been kind to mothers-in-law, he has delivered in känsloekonomin. He doesn’t understand why it gets so wrong when he wants to as well. The one where the grey area is interesting. It is obvious that a good partner is calling his girlfriend. Once, twice, or eight times, but may not be 65 times? When it turns from compassion to be a mental breakdown?
He also compares himself with others in order to relativize their behavior. ”My dad had problems with anger, not I,” he says. Or: ”Have I ever beaten you?”
– Yes, this feeling that he in any case is better than many others. He claims that he has never been violent, but performs a constant mikrovåld. My input in the text was that many people can probably recognize themselves in destructive relationsmönster, even if it has not gone as far as in the short story.
There are many reasons why I became a writer, but one was enough that it creates a sense of control.
is not the first attempt to influence the public with literary funds. Stig Dagerman’s story ”To kill a child” was written in 1948 on behalf of the Nationalföreningen for road safety promotion. The aim was to get motorists to reduce speed and reduce the mortality rate in traffic. It does not prevent – probably rather the opposite – the short story from Stig Dagerman’s most well-known. Jonas Hassen Khemiri had it as a reference during the writing.
– What is so awesome with ”To kill a child” is that it works both as literature in their own right and the purely instrumental. I myself am a notorious fortkörare running slower on country roads thanks to his text. A key to Dagerman’s text is that he never reveals its purpose. My thought was to write a novel in which we first is almost along us with the main character, and then begin to understand the consequences of his thinking.
” It was a way to place him close to myself. There are many reasons why I became a writer, but one was enough that it creates a sense of control. I’ve wondered what it does with your ability to socialize with people, if you devote a great deal of his time to komparera adjectives and create worlds with words. It becomes more difficult to stand out with one’s fellow man’s shortcomings and his own will?
– Now, I don’t know if I have succeeded in that one published, but I know that I’m changing in any way of any writing project. The first drafts I tried to check the fiction in the same way as the protagonist checks his girlfriends. I tried to control and set with him in different ways. When I tried to let go of him, he turned to a man who, hopefully, it is possible to feel something for or recognize.
” If we are serious about trying to change behaviour, I do not believe that nidbilder is the right way to go. Now this is a very current debate, but the violence is not new. I got this assignment long before the #brinnförjosefin and the problem will not be solved by my novel, but I think that there is a capacity to change in recognition. We must understand that the violence live closer to us than we think.
book review: Jonas Hassen Khemiris ”Pappaklausulen” is a black comedy that lands right in time
