The Café with No Name - Robert Seethaler in Discussion with Charlotte Collins

Join internationally acclaimed Austrian author Robert Seethaler for an evening celebrating the publication in English of his latest novel The Café with No Name, translated by Katy Derbyshire. An 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 world and his works have been translated into over 40 languages.

He will be joined by Charlotte Collins, translator of several of his other books (A Whole Life, The Tobacconist, The Field), in a discussion of The Café with No Name, 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 & Culture (ILCS, University of London), and will conclude with a Q&A. This bilingual event is accessible to non-German speakers.

Robert Seethaler was born in Vienna in 1966 and is the author of 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, his novel The Café with No Name was an instant hit, spending 44 weeks in the bestseller lists. 

Charlotte Collins translates contemporary German literature, primarily novels and plays. Her translation of Seethaler’s A Whole Life was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize and the Dublin Literary Award, and was awarded the Goethe-Institut’s Wolff Translator’s Prize in 2017. She has also translated 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. 

This event is organised together with the Austrian Cultural Forum London and Canongate Books.

Attendance is free, but advance online registration is essential. 

Image: Robert Seethaler © Urban Zintel; Charlotte Collins © Roland Glasser.