Oops, Suddenly There was Life (Vips så blev det liv)

Bob Hansson

”I don’t know if you have ever tried to find yourself. I don’t know if you, like me, have plans to do this in India. If you too think that it might be easier to find your true self two thousand kilometers away from home, in a strange country where everybody speaks in hieroglyphs, rather than in the place where you already are.”

 

In Oops, Suddenly There was Life Bob Hansson takes the reader on a journey on how life came about, both his own and the whole life of mankind.  He tells the story of how the blue green algae was smoldering for millions of years before it cracked the code for today’s. A life that took billions of years to develop, but as we are writing is quickly being exterminated.

 

Oops, Suddenly There was Life is a novel of biographical tales from the author’s own life and family. It’s filled with meetings between people from all over the world: Skåne, Syria, Skövde, Lebanon and India. Evolution, disasters and copulation all needed for a new human being to be born. With a close approach and in an honest way Bob Hansson tells his own family history and origin. In this book an insane comedy meets a deep and important seriousness. Oops, Suddenly There was Life is a humorous and spiritual story about love, celebrating life.

 

With this book Bob Hansson takes a large step as a great narrator, with a grand message – without love, no life, without life, nothing.

 

370 pages.

 

Rights sold

Norway: Cappelen Damm

Sweden: Ordfront förlag

 

Reviews

“The journey Hansson takes us on is quite dazzling at times. Harious but yet the slapsticks sometimes are turned to their opposite. There is a good swing to Hansson.”

Skånskan

 

"I am having an insolently good time reading about when Bob goes to India and isn’t let in due to a lacking visa, and I have to swallow away some tears when he goes deeply into himself and his relations. The parts about being left are spellbinding and that is when he delivers a poetic clarity on what surviving fear and grief is all about."

Helsingborgs Dagblad

 

"An hilarious and sentimental picaresque, jumping back and forth in time, but written with great flow."

Aftonbladet

 

"I am jealous of Bob Hansson’s genius method."

Svenska Dagbladet

 

"Hansson creates pirouettes which moves even the most obstinate critic. His timing is super sharp, his heart is big enough for all mankind (give or take one Indian border patrol officer or two). But most of all, his ability to look upon weakness as an asset of strength is the power of this book."

Dagens Nyheter

 

"Everything is so funny that I laugh out loud to the hero’s stumbling way to wisdom and happiness. He is like Candide – an accidental and unhappy creature with the purest heard dreaming of the best of worlds. Finally he finds his own guru and teacher – a wise Indian man who teaches him true love. He returns home with glowing eyes. Bob Hansson’s new novel is as irresistible as his appearance in the culture programs on television. When emotions and irony meet in a sizzling brew, exquisite and without explanations it is just great. This is bold literature and modern romantic."

Göteborgsposten

 

"The emotions Hansson supplies with this book are similar to the feelings I had as a teenager, standing under the icy winter sky smoking the cigarettes I wasn’t supposed to touch. With feelings of impatience, anticipation and expectations for something wonderful bubbling in the stomach."

Katrineholmskuriren

 

"Bob Hansson’s novel Oops, Suddenly There was Life can’t be placed in a certain genre. It combines in a creative way, the family saga with the colorful self biographic development novel. He has found a composition that successfully blends the stories. /…/He is not only funny and squeamish. Maybe due to being a constant outsider, he is also funny on a basic level which lure out universal laughter."

Kristianstadsbladet