The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred-Year-Old Man
It all begins with a hot air balloon trip and three bottles of champagne. Allan and Julius are ready for some spectacular views, but they’re not expecting to land in the sea and be rescued by a North Korean ship, and they could never have imagined that the captain of the ship would be harbouring a suitcase full of contraband uranium, on a nuclear weapons mission for Kim Jong-un …Soon Allan and Julius are at the centre of a complex diplomatic crisis involving world figures from the Swedish foreign minister to Angela Merkel and President Trump. Things are about to get very complicated …
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This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2018
Copyright © Jonas Jonasson 2018, first published by Piratförlaget, Sweden, and upon agreement with Brandt New Agency
Translation copyright © Rachel Willson-Broyles 2018
Cover based on a series design by Jonathan Pelham
Jonas Jonasson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN 9780008275570
Ebook Edition © August 2018 ISBN: 9780008275587
Version: 2018-10-03
I AM JONAS JONASSON and I want to explain myself.
There was never meant to be a sequel to the story of the hundred-year-old man who climbed out of a window and disappeared. Many people wanted one, not least the protagonist, Allan Karlsson, who kept strolling around inside my head and calling attention to himself whenever he wished.
‘Mr Jonasson,’ he might say, out of nowhere, as I was busy with my own thoughts. ‘Have you changed your mind yet, Mr Jonasson? Don’t you want to have another round before I’m really old?’
No, I didn’t. I’d already said everything I wanted to say about what was perhaps the most miserable century ever. The idea had been that if we reminded one another of all the shortcomings of the twentieth century, maybe it would make us better at remembering and less inclined to make at least those mistakes again. I packaged this message of mine with warmth and humour. Soon the book spread all over the world.
It sure as hell didn’t make the world a better place.
Time passed. My inner Allan stopped getting in touch. All the while, humanity kept moving forwards, or whatever direction it was moving in. Event after event filled me with the sense that the world was more incomplete than ever. All the while, I was just an onlooker.
More and more I started to feel the need to speak up again, in my own way. Or Allan’s. One day I heard myself asking Allan straight out whether he was still with me.
‘Yes, I’m here,’ he said. ‘What might you have on your mind, Mr Jonasson, after such a long time?’
‘I need you,’ I said.
‘For what?’
‘For telling it like it is and, indirectly, how it ought to be.’
‘About everything?’
‘About more or less everything.’
‘Mr Jonasson, you understand that won’t help, right?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Good. Count me in.’
* * *
RIGHT, THERE’S ONE MORE THING. This is a novel about recent and present events. I make use of a number of public political figures in the plot, and of people in their immediate vicinity. Most of the characters in the book go by their real names. Others, I have spared.
Since these leaders sometimes look down upon, rather than up at, ordinary folks, it’s reasonable to poke a little fun at them. But that doesn’t make them less than human, every one, and as such they deserve a moderate amount of respect. To all these potentates, I would like to say: I’m sorry. And: Deal with it. It could have been worse. As well as: What if it is?
Jonas Jonasson
A life of luxury on an island in Paradise ought to be satisfactory to just about anyone. But Allan Karlsson had never been just anyone, and his hundred-and-first year of life wasn’t the time to start.
It was, for a certain amount of time, gratifying to sit in a lounger under an umbrella and be served drinks of various colours at whim. Especially when one’s best and only friend, the inveterate petty thief Julius Jonsson, was right next to one.
