The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden
![]() First edition (Swedish) | |
Author | Jonas Jonasson |
---|---|
Original title | Analfabeten som kunde räkna |
Translator | Rachel Willson-Broyles |
Language | Swedish |
Genre | Novel |
Published | 2013 |
Publisher | Piratförlaget, Ecco Press (1st US edition) |
Publication date | 25 September 2013 |
Publication place | Sweden |
Published in English | 20 April 2014 |
Media type | |
Pages | 387 |
ISBN | 978-0062329127 (1st US edition) |
OCLC | 859586132 |
839.73.8 | |
LC Class | PT9877.2.O537 A7313 |
Preceded by | The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared |
Followed by | Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It All |
The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden is a Swedish novel written by Jonas Jonasson. The book was first published in 2013 as the second novel of the author, after the best-selling The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, and translated into English by Rachel Willson-Broyles[1][2][3]
Plot
In 1961, Nombeko Mayeki is born a poor black girl in Soweto. She leaves the slums and a twist of fate – she is run over but survives – puts her into the employ of the engineer who ran her over, as a cleaner in South Africa's secret nuclear weapons facility. Here, her good head for mathematics leads her to cover for her drunken and incompetent employer. Two Mossad agents eventually murder her employer, and she outwits them and escapes to Sweden, but due to a mixup, ends up in possession of a missing South African atom bomb. In Sweden, she settles in a bizarre commune including two unstable republicans determined to end the Swedish monarchy. Nombeko and her Swedish boyfriend are determined to hand the bomb over to the Swedish Prime Minister, but no-one will believe them. Years later, after several attempts to hand over the bomb have failed in absurd circumstances, the two republicans kidnap the King and the Prime Minister of Sweden from a gala banquet with Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Royal Palace in Stockholm, and prepare to blow up the bomb (and everything within a 38-mile radius) in order to end the monarchy. Nombeko calms the situation down, saving the King's life, and her own.[4]
References
- ^ "The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden review – Jonas Jonasson's unlikely but likable follow-up to The 100-Year-Old Man". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
- ^ "The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden". Kirkus. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
- ^ "Book review: The Girl Who Saved The King of Sweden". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
- ^ "The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden". HC. Retrieved 25 April 2015.