The Sisters

Longlisted for the 2025 National Book Award for Fiction One of Publishers Weekly's 10 Best Books of 2025 A New York Times Best Book of the Year So Far | Editors' Choice Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction Named a most anticipated book of summer by Vulture | The Boston Globe One of the BBC's 10 Best Books of the Summer | A Times (London) Best Book of the Year "One gawps . . . at its breadth and ambition. [The Sisters is] a transnational tour de force." -Alexandra Jacobs, The New York Times Book Review "One of this summer's most buzzed-about novels." -Nilanjana Roy, Financial Times "A classic story about sibling rivalry . . . One of the best novels I've ever read about the complexities of mixed heritage." -Fredrik Backman, The New Yorker "[The Sisters] generates every kind of heat . . . 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 "Astonishing . . . Every character-every sentence-is startlingly, indubitably alive." -Katie Kitamura, author of Audition and Intimacies An addictively entertaining family saga by a National Book Award finalist. 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, Jonas Hassen Khemiri's The Sisters is a big, vivid family saga of the highest order-an addictively entertaining tour de force.

Jonas Hassen Khemiri is the author of six novels, seven plays, and a collection of short stories and essays. His work has been translated into more than 35 languages. The Family Clause was a finalist for the National Book Award for Translated Literature and received the Prix Médicis Étranger in France. Khemiri has been a finalist for Sweden's most prestigious literary prize three times, winning it once. His play Invasion! earned an Obie Award for Best Script. A recipient of the Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library, Khemiri's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and numerous other publications. His novel, The Sisters, is his first book written in English. Khemiri lives in Brooklyn with his family and teaches creative writing at NYU.