The Café with No Name

By Robert Seethaler
Translated by Katy Derbyshire

“Calming, gentle and unsentimental.”—The Guardian

“A reminder of the strength and importance of human connections.”—New York Journal of Books

Warm, fleeting, and profoundly human.”—Independent Book Review

“A humble café in post-World War II Vienna serves as backdrop for all the large and small dramas of everyday life in this subtly scintillating novel... While Seethaler's characters face significant difficulties, the story never feels grim, but rather steadfast and even hopeful. Katy Derbyshire translates Seethaler’s prose from the German with calm delivery, charming descriptions, and understated humor. This lovely novel sweetly and simply emphasizes built family, resilience, and rebirth.”—Julia Kastner, Shelf Awareness

From one of Austria’s most beloved and best-selling authors, comes this vibrant tale of love, companionship, and renewal set against the transformations of 1960s Vienna. 

Summer 1966. Robert Simon is in his early thirties and has a dream: to open a café that welcomes all kinds of customers. Raised in a home for war orphans, Robert has miraculously grown into a warm-hearted, hard-working, and determined man. When the corner café in the Carmelite market square closes, Robert realizes that his chance has come. 

The place, dark and dilapidated, is in a poor neighborhood of the Austrian capital, but for some time now a new wind has been blowing, and the air is filled with an inexplicable energy and a desire for renewal. In the newspapers with which fishmongers wrap the char and trout from the Danube, one can read about great things to come, a bright future beginning to rise from the quagmire of the past. Enlivened by these promises, Robert refurbishes the café, painting the walls, varnishing the furniture, and polishing the stove plates. Rewarding Robert’s efforts and in search of a congenial place to gather, talk, read, or just sit and be, customers arrive, bringing their stories of passions, friendships, abandonments, and bereavements. Some are in search of company, others long for love, or just a place where they can feel understood. As the city is transformed, Robert's café becomes at once a place of refuge and one from which to observe and rejoice. 

Combining the enchantment of warm prose with tender humor, Robert Seethaler has written a charming parable of human existence animated by unforgettable characters and a kaleidoscope of human stories. 

Hardcover
208 pages
Europa Editions, 2025
5.28 x 8.27 inches
ISBN 9798889660644
Literary Fiction