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The ACF London is delighted to welcome internationally acclaimed Austrian author Robert Seethaler for a special evening celebrating the English publication of his latest novel The Café with No Name, translated by Katy Derbyshire. A number one international bestseller, this captivating historical tale follows the lives of a diverse group of characters who gather in a small Viennese café in the 1960s, navigating personal dreams, friendships and the changing world around them.
Seethaler, widely known for his International Booker-shortlisted novel A Whole Life and the bestseller The Tobacconist, has enchanted readers across the globe, with his works translated into over 40 languages.
He will be joined by renowned literary translator Charlotte Collins, who has translated several of his other books. (e.g. A Whole Life, The Tobacconist, The Field) Together, they will discuss the novel, its themes and the process of literary translation.
The event will be chaired by Andrea Capovilla, Director of the Ingeborg Bachmann Centre for Austrian Literature and Culture and will conclude with an audience Q&A session.
This bilingual event is accessible to non-German speakers.
Join us for an insightful discussion on The Café with No Name and Seethaler’s distinctive storytelling.
The event is organised in cooperation with the Ingeborg Bachmann Centre for Austrian Literature & Culture at the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies (University of London) and Canongate Books.
The Café with No Name is a captivating historical tale set in 1960s Vienna from the International Booker-shortlisted and bestselling author of A Whole Life and The Tobacconist.
It is 1966, and Robert Simon has just fulfilled his dream by taking over a café on the corner of a bustling Vienna market. He recruits a barmaid, Mila, and soon the customers flock in. Factory workers, market traders, elderly ladies, a wrestler, a painter, an unemployed seamstress in search of a job, each bring their stories and their plans for the future. As Robert listens and Mila refills their glasses, romances bloom, friendships are made and fortunes change. And change is coming to the city around them, to the little café, and to Robert’s dream.
A story of the hopes, kindnesses and everyday heroism of one community, The Café with No Name has charmed millions of European readers. It is an unforgettable novel about how we carry each other through good and bad times, and how even the most ordinary life is, in its own way, quite extraordinary.
Robert Seethaler was born in Vienna in 1966 and is the author of several novels including A Whole Life, which was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, and The Tobacconist, which was a number one German bestseller. Originally published in 2023, Seethaler’s novel The Café with No Name was an instant number one bestseller, spending 44 weeks on the bestseller lists. His works have been translated into over 40 languages.
Charlotte Collins translates contemporary German literature, primarily novels and plays. Her translations include Robert Seethaler’s A Whole Life (shortlisted for the Man Booker International and the Dublin Literary Award), for which she was awarded the Goethe-Institut’s Wolff Translator’s Prize in 2017, as well as Seethaler’s The Tobacconist and The Field. Her co-translation (with Ruth Martin) of Nino Haratischvili’s The Eighth Life won the 2020 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation. Other works include Darkenbloom by Eva Menasse, Olga and The Granddaughter by Bernhard Schlink, Homeland by Walter Kempowski, and The End of Loneliness by Benedict Wells. From 2017 to 2020, she served as Co-Chair of the SoA Translators Association.
