The girl who saved the King of Sweden
By: Jonas Jonasson ; translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles
Contributors: Willson-Broyles, Rachel, translator
Edition: First edition.
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 387
ISBN-13: 9780062329127
Subjects: South Africans; Nuclear weapons; Diamond smugglers; Kings and rulers; Fiction; Subversive activities; Secret service; Twins
Other titles: Illiterate who could count
Work titles: Analfabeten som kunde räkna
Description: In a tiny shack in the largest township in South Africa, Nombeko Mayeki is born. Put to work at five years old and orphaned at ten, she quickly learns that the world expects nothing more from her than to die young, be it from drugs, alcohol, or just plain despair. But Nombeko has grander plans. She learns to read and write, and at just fifteen, using her cunning and fearlessness, she makes it out of Soweto with millions of smuggled diamonds in her possession. Then things take a turn for the worse ... Nombeko ends up the prisoner of an incompetent engineer in a research facility working on South Africa's secret nuclear arsenal. Yet the unstoppable Nombeko pulls off a daring escape to Sweden, where she meets twins named Holger One and Holger Two, who are carrying out a mission to bring down the Swedish monarchy ... by any means necessary. Nombeko's life ends up hopelessly intertwined with the lives of the twins, and when the twins arrange to kidnap the Swedish king and prime minister, it is up to our unlikely heroine to save the day -- and possibly the world.
Notes: "Originally published in Sweden as Analfabeten som kunde räkna by Piratforlaget in 2013"--Title page verso.

Translated from the Swedish.