Algot, Anna Stina and the Water of Life by Jonas Jonasson

Jonas Jonasson is certainly known for writing books with long titles. His first and probably best-known novel was ‘The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared’. This latest book, ‘Algot, Anna Stina and the Water of Life ’, is an amusing romp set in Sweden in 1853. It is a simple story of the poor guy versus the rich local count who has all the authority and wealth to make and break whoever he pleases.

Count Bielkegren is under pressure from his French wife to acquire a little more land close to his castle so she can exercise her thoroughbred horses. The specific piece of land is owned by Algot Olsson’s father, the local hog farmer. Having become a successful farmer, Sven Olsson invests in the education of his son Algot, while the Count’s only son Mauritz turns out to be an abject failure, even when his father buys him a rank in the army.

The battle lines are drawn, Sven Olsson will not sell his land and the count wants nothing more than a peaceful life where he is not nagged by his French wife. When the count finds a distant tenant with a sick pig, he moves him to the land next to Olsson and within no time Sven has lost his herd, all his possessions and soon after passes away a broken man. The count installs Algot on a run down croft and charges him a huge rent, thinking that will be the end of him too in no time at all.

Algot is too clever for that and has the one thing that his father left him, a small still for brewing spirits from potatoes. While every other home brew can only be drunk while holding the nose, Algot refines his to a much better level. He can sell it far and wide for a large premium.

Brännvin is the name of the spirit that Algot brews, with the clever introduction of a little charcoal to filter out the impurities. Soon everybody wants to buy some. The labourers building the railways can’t get enough of the stuff. After the unfortunate crash of his booze laden waggon, he literally drops in on the master printer Helmut Zimmermann and his headstrong daughter Anna Stina. Algot is smitten by Anna Stina and Helmut senses an ideal business partner. On thing leads to another, but what will happen next?

Very funny, witty and clever at the same time, in a way that only Jonas Jonasson can conjure up.

Reviewer: Marcus Hobson

Harper Collins