The Prophet and the Idiot: A Novel

Obsessed by what they are certain is the impending apocalypse, a mismatched trio sets off on a globe-trotting road trip in the latest feel-good adventure from the internationally bestselling author of The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

In the fading days of summer 2011, self-taught astrophysicist Petra has calculated that the atmosphere will collapse in a few weeks’ time—on September 21, at approximately 9:20 p.m.—ending the world as we know it.

But the distraught Petra will not have to carry the burden of this terrible news alone for long. Fate intervenes, bringing her into the orbit of a pair of unlikely companions: Johan, a man whose intellectual prowess is remarkably overshadowed by his culinary skills, and Agnes, a seventy-five-year-old widow who has made a fortune posing as a young influencer on social media. Convinced of their impending doom, Petra, Johan and Agnes embark on a wild adventure in a camper van that will take them from their homes in Sweden, through Europe, to their destination: Rome.

Johan plans to make the most of the time he has left. He has decided at last to stand up to his heinous big brother, promising to deliver a swift yet brutal blow in more ways than one. But of course, nothing ever goes as planned. Not even the end of the world.

In this, his sixth novel, Jonas Jonasson takes us on a dazzling odyssey across the globe—from Sweden, through Europe, across Africa and all the way to the U.S. The Prophet and the Idiot is an immensely funny, socially conscious and life-affirming yarn about what happens when three odd yet fully reasonable characters come together and find cause to make mutual plans, all relayed in Jonasson’s classically hilarious style.

Translated from the Swedish by Rachel Wilson-Broyles