The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared

On the morning of his hundredth birthday, Allan Karlsson decides he has had enough of the nursing home. He climbs out of his window in his slippers and sets off with no plan whatsoever. Within hours he has accidentally stolen a suitcase full of cash from a criminal, acquired several unlikely companions, and begun a chain of absurd events involving an elephant, a hot dog stand, and some very confused gangsters. Meanwhile, flashbacks reveal that Allan has spent the twentieth century stumbling through the corridors of power, accidentally shaping world history while sharing drinks with everyone from Stalin to Truman.

Why Start Here

Jonas Jonasson’s debut is the literary equivalent of a feel-good road movie. It combines two stories: a slapstick present-day adventure and a wildly improbable life story spanning the entire twentieth century. The result is a novel that somehow makes geopolitics, explosions, and centenarian escapades feel cozy and cheerful.

The book works as feel-good fiction because Allan himself is completely unflappable. Nothing fazes him. He has survived dictators, Cold War politics, and a century of human folly with the same mild good humor, and his refusal to take anything too seriously is infectious. It is a book that says life is absurd, people are strange, and that is perfectly fine.

What to Expect

A 384-page comic novel that alternates between Allan’s present-day misadventures and his picaresque journey through twentieth-century history. The humor is broad, the coincidences are gloriously unlikely, and the pace never lets up. Originally published in Swedish in 2009, the book became an international sensation with over six million copies sold and was adapted into a popular Swedish film in 2013.