Anansi International
A Whole Life
Written by Robert Seethaler • Translated by Charlotte Collins
Published October 03, 2015 |
ISBN 9781487000752
FICTION / Literary
About this book
A Whole Life
Robert Seethaler • Charlotte Collins
Shortlisted for The 2017 National Translation Award
Shortlisted for The 2017 International Dublin Literary Award
Shortlisted for The 2016 Man Booker International Prize
Andreas lives his whole life in the Austrian Alps, where he arrives as a young boy taken in by a farming family. He is a man of very few words and so, when he falls in love with Marie, he doesn't ask for her hand in marriage, but instead has some of his friends light her name at dusk across the mountain. When Marie dies in an avalanche, pregnant with their first child, Andreas' heart is broken. He leaves his valley just once more, to fight in WWII — where he is taken prisoner in the Caucasus — and returns to find that modernity has reached his remote haven . . .
Like John Williams' Stoner or Denis Johnson's Train Dreams, A Whole Life is a tender book about finding dignity and beauty in solitude. An exquisite novel about a simple life, it has already demonstrated its power to move thousands of readers with a message of solace and truth. It looks at the moments, big and small, that make us what we are.
About the Creators
Robert Seethaler
ROBERT SEETHALER is an Austrian living in Berlin. He is the bestselling author of four novels, including The Tobacconist, which has sold more than 200,000 copies in Germany, and A Whole Life, which has sold more than 100,000 copies in Germany. He also works as an actor, most recently in Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth.
Charlotte Collins
Charlotte Collins studied English at Cambridge University. She worked as an actor and radio journalist in both Germany and the UK before becoming a literary translator. She has also translated Robert Seethaler's A Whole Life, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize, and is co-translating The Eighth Life, an award-winning novel by Nino Haratischwili.
Awards and Praise
- Short-listed National Translation Award, 2017
- Short-listed The Man Booker International Prize, 2016
- Winner Anton-Wildgans Prize, 2017