The Father Contract

Twice a year, Grandpa comes home from abroad to visit his grown children. His son is a loser. His daughter is expecting a child not from the right man. Only the wise patriarch seems almost perfect—at least, that’s how he thinks… The novel “A Father’s Contract,” with irony and bitterness, tells how hard it is to find common ground with the closest people. What does it mean to be a good father and husband, a mother and wife, a son and daughter, a sister or brother? It seems our roles change, but how do you find balance between family obligations and personal freedom—between the desire to stay close to those you love and the temptation to run away from those who sometimes hurt you? Published in Russian for the first time. *** Jonas Hassen Khemiri (born 1978) is one of the most popular contemporary Swedish writers and the recipient of many literary awards. His debut novel “Everything I Don’t Remember” (2015) won the prestigious August Strindberg Prize, has been translated into 25 languages, including Russian (2021). In 2003, his debut “On a Red Eye” became the best-selling novel in Sweden and was adapted for film in 2007. In 2020, “A Father’s Contract” (2018) became a finalist for the National Book Award for Translated Literature in the United States. In October 2021, Jonas Hassen Khemiri received the prestigious French Prix Médicis étranger for best translated work (Prix Médicis étranger) for “A Father’s Contract.” The founder of the prize, Pierre Giraudoux, noted that it should be awarded to an author whose fame “still does not match his talent.”