News | Penguin Random House | Munich, 05/17/2013

Record: Two Million Copies Of ‘The Centenarian Who …’ Sold

When people speak about the year 2012 in books, they will inevitably refer to the sensational success of the "Fifty Shades" trilogy. In the English-speaking countries, in Spain and Germany, E L James’s novels are published by Random House publishers and have generated millions of book sales. The fact that Random House also had a whole series of other notable bestsellers last year is impressively demonstrated by the success of "The Centenarian Who Climbed Out The Window And Vanished" (“Der Hundertjährige, der aus dem Fenster stieg und verschwand”) by Jonas Jonasson. 20 months ago, Carl's Books published Jonasson’s debut novel in Germany – and now the perennial bestseller has reached the magic mark of two million copies sold.

With this milestone, the Swedish author's novel has in fact become the best-selling hardcover book in the history of the Germany’s Verlagsgruppe Random House. "The Centenarian Who Climbed Out The Window And Vanished" has spent 89 weeks in a row in the "Spiegel" bestseller lists, 32 of them at No.1, and currently occupies third place. The book has also been a great success for Hörverlag in Munich, which has sold around 130,000 copies of the audiobook version on six CDs to date. Due to popular demand, in June Hörverlag will publish an elaborate audio play version. Altogether, the book has sold five million copies worldwide and was not only No.1 in Germany, but also in Sweden, Israel, Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark, Iceland, Spain, the Czech Republic and Hungary. And there could be more to come, because the license rights have been granted in 35 countries altogether.

"An incredible success story whose scope really surprised us," says Carl's Books Publishing Director Johannes Jacob. "While we were initially reluctant to reprint 20,000, or at the most 30,000 copies of the book, we are now ordering print runs of 50,000 copies or more. This is definitely a new, but admittedly pleasant experience for us." Since then he has been repeatedly asked whether such success can be planned, and what exactly the special ingredients are for this. "Of course, it is first and foremost the quality of the novel itself," he says. "This combination of road movie, Forrest Gump, crime comedy and time travel into the 20th century is unique, and perfectly executed by Jonasson. The German translation works seamlessly thanks to Wibke Kuhn’s brilliant and sensitive handling of the text. And I believe we also did a good job with the design.

"At this point I’d like to pay a special compliment to German booksellers," Jacob adds. "They read the book early on and chose it as their favorite book, even before it was on the shelves. And with their personal recommendations and great passion they passed on their own enthusiasm to their customers. In this way it was discovered by a large audience at breakneck speed, with no advertising and even before the press discovered it for themselves." The publishing director was delighted of course when a flood of enthusiastic reviews for the book then ensued. "When ‘Stern’ wrote shortly before Christmas ‘Hat’s off to this one – a wonderful book that is full of ideas and narrative pleasure,' if not before, we felt absolutely confirmed in our decision to have made the book the top title in Carl's Books debut program.”

"The Centenarian Who Climbed Out The Window And Vanished" takes place on two levels. On the first, in the present, Allan Karlsson decides to flee an imminent tribute by local dignitaries on the day of his 100th birthday, by climbing out a window and leaving his nursing home unnoticed. On his adventurous flight he gains possession of a suitcase containing 50 million Swedish kroner belonging to the drug mafia, joins forces with characters including a small-time criminal and a female university student, and is chased clear across Sweden by police and gangsters alike. At the same time, the novel tells the no less turbulent and bizarre biography of the exceedingly obstinate Karlsson, whose life appears to be one long succession of strange coincidences that keep leading him into the thick of major events of the 20th century, and causing him to meet a whole gallery of historical personages including Franco, Churchill and Stalin.

Jonas Jonasson was born in 1961 in Växjö, Sweden. After studying in Gothenburg, he worked as a journalist for the newspaper “Smålandsposten” and the tabloid “Expressen.” He later founded his own media company, but after 20 years in the media world he sold everything and wrote the novel he had been thinking about for years: "The Centenarian Who Climbed Out The Window And Vanished." Jonas Jonasson lives on the Swedish island of Gotland and is writing his second novel.