Playing with language while playing with literature (and authority). Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s “Fem gånger Gud” (2008)

Born in Stockholm to a Swedish mother and a Tunisian father, Jonas Hassen Khemiri (b. 1978) grew up in a multilingual context and, since his debut in 2003 with the internationally praised novel Ett öga rött (One Eye Red), he has offered some of the recently most significant Scandinavian contributions in terms of linguistic contamination and literary exploitation of cultural and linguistic clashes. In his works, Khemiri stages linguistic performances in which the subversion of standard language rules and the use of diverse – also invented – registers become tools for self-expression and self-determination. Against the backdrop of Khemiri’s more famous examples of linguistic innovation, this article focuses on how multilingualism is staged in the play Fem gånger Gud (Five Times God), investigating how and why code mixing and code switching are combined and employed, including svengelska (a blend of Swedish and English), ethnolects and youth slang.