Jonas Jonasson: My 100-year-old hero, and the secret of happiness It's a brilliant satire on the foibles of mankind, and so far has been translated into 35 languages. Twenty film companies fought to make the movie. A Swedish company, Nice FLX Pictures, won and Swedish comedian and actor Robert Gustafsson plays Allan. Disney is involved in the distribution and the film will released late next year. Jonasson admits that Allan is an aspect of himself writ very large and that he has become his alter ego. I had a bit of Allan in me when I was a young man and never worried about anything. I lost it by working too hard and through my marital troubles, but I then used him in an extreme way to create the book. When Jonasson feels down he still thinks of him. "He sort of appears on my shoulder if I get stressed and says, 'Come on, it cannot be that bad."" He has needed Allan on several occasions, when he has climbed out of his own window and radically changed his life. By now we had moved into his splendid 1850s house to talk. There is a large incubator in the hall where several chicks have recently hatched. He treats the fowl as family. I have six adults, seven teenagers and 11 chicks, all of which I've named, and some of the chicks sleep in my bed. Err, don't they make a mess? "Yes," he smiles, "but as they are tiny, so is the mess." Has he ever unwittingly squashed one? I sleep with one eye open, as you do next to a newborn baby. We moved into an immaculate (and chicken-free) living room, which has natural wooden floors, soft turquoise upholstery and pink and white pots of flowering geraniums on the windowsills. Jonasson placed two tiny teabag-type packages of tobacco, called snus, under his upper lip before we began. "Everyone uses them in Sweden," he said. His English is good, but when lost for a word he consults his laptop for a translation. He is the youngest of three brothers from Växjö in southern Sweden. His mother was a nurse and his father an ambulance driver. Jonasson always loved writing and when at Gothenburg University, where he studied Swedish and Spanish, started working for Expressen, Sweden's largest daily newspaper. He joined the staff when he completed his studies. He was, by all accounts, on the fast lane for the top job but in 1994, after 15 years, decided to quit. "It was the first time I climbed out of my window," he says. I didn't know what I wanted to do, just that I wanted a different life. He became a media consultant and a year later joined Sweden's commercial channel TV4 as a producer. Within a few years his media company had more than 100 employees. I worked seven days a week and at least 16 hours a day for two decades. Although I occasionally had a girlfriend I was basically married to my work. Somehow, throughout this time I'd also write the occasional page for the book. It helped me cope with stress. By the end of 2003, he had had two major back operations and was generally "feeling dreadful." One day, when he couldn't get hold of a sports star to discuss an interview, his heart started racing and he thought he was having a heart attack. "The doctor said it wasn't my heart but that I was killing myself through stress," he explains. He stopped work. The doctor said it would take me several months to get over it. In fact it took several years. I was put on anti-depressants, and had therapy, but for months I was so anxious and exhausted I could barely walk to the kitchen. I knew I had to change my life. In 2005 he moved to a remote part of Sörmland on the south coast of Sweden, with his cat Molotov. I also sold my company for about £10 million. It was a relief not to be responsible for so many people. It gave me freedom. At the end of two years living on my own, I felt better. I had been married to my work and thought it would be good to marry a woman instead. But how would a 44-year-old man find anyone suitable in such an isolated spot? I went on the dating site Match.com and made contact with a 40-year-old mixed-race Norwegian. Our first meeting was at Stockholm airport. The second was at my house, where she stayed. He has had a very bad time, is nervous about discussing it, and lowers his voice. It was all too quick. I was desperate to be loved. She said she loved me and I wanted to believe her. She became pregnant a few months after we met and we married in February 2007. By the time his son (who cannot be named for legal reasons) was born the marriage was in trouble. They decided to move to an apartment overlooking Lake Lugano to give themselves a fresh start, but it didn't help. They divorced through the Swiss courts and the unusual decision was made that Jonasson should have sole custody of his child with no access for his wife. He decided it would be best to move back to Sweden. As the courts couldn't use the Swiss ruling, the whole gruelling process had to be gone through again. But the decision was the same. I wanted to be married too much. But the result has been a wonderful child, who is everything to me - so I cannot regret it. He began writing seriously in Switzerland. People asked me what I did and I didn't know what to say. I felt I had no identity so thought the time was at last right to become an author. Writing also helped me escape from my traumas. When it was finished I posted it to six Swedish publishers. Five turned it down and the sixth rang sounding very excited and said, 'I have read half. We want to publish it. I replied: 'Do you want to publish the half you have read or all of it?"" How could the book have taken quite so long? I didn't have the confidence to do it earlier. A considerable part of the book involves going into the brains of presidents and prime ministers and 20 years ago I didn't dare, for example, to tap into Churchill's way of thinking. Other leaders whose minds he briefly inhabits include President Truman, Mao Tse Tung, General Franco and de Gaulle. Even when I was doing it I said to myself, 'Can one write like this? I replied, 'You just did."" The research wasn't difficult. I have always loved reading modern history. I have included many of the 20th-century monsters but not Hitler. Although I believe you can joke about everything and Stalin was at least as bad, I couldn't satirise the Holocaust. I feel I have produced a hopeful satire on the shortcomings of mankind. He promises his second book won't take so long. It's about a South African woman who lives in Soweto and turns the world upside down. It's very funny. Pressures of the custody battle stopped him initially enjoying the book's success, but life has got infinitely better during the past couple of years and he may celebrate by buying a helicopter to help him get around more easily. He also has a new partner. I met Marie, a 45-year-old TV journalist who works on a book programme, at the Swedish book fair in Gothenburg. We now live together and hope we can have a child. I also feel I can trust again. It was time for lunch. As we sat eating gravlax and home-grown asparagus, the post arrived. There were lots of Jiffy bags full of newly translated imminent editions of his book. "It all seems so unreal," he smiled as he tore open one package after another. Just like his book.