The International Number One Bestseller set in 1960s Vienna now in paperback

THE NUMBER ONE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

'How I loved this book . . . Seethaler is in his very own league' Elizabeth Strout

'[A] moving, charming novel about to what extent we must change as the world around us hurtles into the unknown'
Observer

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, 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.

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.

Details

ISBN13: 9781837261024
Format: Paperback / softback
Number of Pages: 224
Edition: Main
Publication Date: 21 Jul 2026
Publisher:
Publication City, Country: Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 20.4(H)x13.5(L)x1.3(W)159
Weight (gm): 159

Author Biography

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 list. His works have been translated into over 40 languages.

Katy Derbyshire is a Berlin-based translator. She has translated works by Christa Wolf, Inka Parei and Clemens Meyer, most notably Meyer's novel Bricks and Mortar, which won the Straelener Prize for Translation. Meyer and Derbyshire have twice been longlisted for the International Booker Prize.

Reviews

How I loved this book! Filled with truth after truth, poignantly rendered and given to us with tender open-handedness. Seethaler is in his very own league, capturing a place and time that is ultimately universal -- ELIZABETH STROUT
[A] moving, charming novel about to what extent we must change as the world around us hurtles into the unknown * * Observer * *
[Seethaler's] latest fable-like miniature invites quiet wonder into the ordinary * * Financial Times * *
In a world of action movies and social media there's little time for quiet contemplation. Seethaler reminds us we're part of a whole * * Spectator * *
Rewarding . . . written with an understated and elegant restraint that is no less poignant and powerful for it -- TAN TWAN ENG
Seethaler's subtly understated voice remains warmly welcome in a literary culture that often displays its intentions too obviously. Many will love this calming, gentle and unsentimental story. Certainly, Seethaler remains admirably true to his creative vision. A poet of the small, the random and the event without consequence, his is a world we can all enjoy * * Guardian * *
While the novel stands up for the dignity of the human amid the casual violence of progress, it contains something more existential at its heart. It is haunted yet curiously timeless, a study of the battle against loneliness and despair, and of the traumas of war that persist through the generations * * Times Literary Supplement * *
A gallery of vibrant characters presented with an appealing blend of understated honesty and unsentimental warmth * * New York Times Book Review * *
Mr. Seethaler's quietly beguiling eighth novel, The Café With No Name, is his most uplifting to date . . . The sense of community that emerges in the nameless coffee house recalls the connections forged between quirky, lonely people in Haruki Murakami's stories and in Satoshi Yagisawa's novel, Days at the Morisaki Bookshop * * Wall Street Journal * *
Evocative and aching, Seethaler's tale is as true as life itself * * Toronto Star * *