The Tobacconist

From the bestselling author of A Whole Life, a moving account of an ordinary young man living through extraordinary times, and the lengths we will go to in order to protect what we love.

'Set at a time of lengthening shadows, this is a novel about the sparks that illuminate the dark: of wisdom, compassion, defiance and courage. It is wry, piercing and also, fittingly, radiant.' Daily Mail/b>b>/b>b>From Robert Seethaler, the author of the Man Booker International shortlisted A Whole Life, comes a deeply moving story of ordinary lives profoundly affected by the Third Reich, in the tradition of novels such as Fred Uhlman's classic Reunion, Bernhard Schlink's The Reader and Rachel Seiffert's The Dark Room./b>When seventeen-year-old Franz exchanges his home in the idyllic beauty of the Austrian lake district for the bustle of Vienna, his homesickness quickly dissolves amidst the thrum of the city. In his role as apprentice to the elderly tobacconist Otto Trsnyek, he will soon be supplying the great and good of Vienna with their newspapers and cigarettes. Among the regulars is a Professor Freud, whose predilection for cigars and occasional willingness to dispense romantic advice will forge a bond between him and young Franz.It is 1937. In a matter of months Germany will annex Austria and the storm that has been threatening to engulf the little tobacconist will descend, leaving the lives of Franz, Otto and Professor Freud irredeemably changed.

I enjoyed Robert Seethaler's The Tobacconist. The novel sets up a tiny tobacconist's shop in 1930s Vienna as a window on to a street, a city and a continent, all drifting into conflict.

Préface
From the bestselling author of A Whole Life, a moving account of an ordinary young man living through extraordinary times, and the lengths we will go to in order to protect what we love.

Auteur
Robert Seethaler was born in Vienna in 1966 and is the author of several novels including A Whole Life and The Tobacconist. A Whole Life was a top ten-bestseller in Germany, and has garnered huge acclaim. Charlotte Collins studied English at Cambridge University. She worked as an actor and radio journalist in both Germany and the U.K. before becoming a literary translator. She has translated work by Robert Seethaler and Nino Haratischwili.

Texte du rabat
'Tender and elegiac . . . Devastating . . . Complex, ambitious and moving' Times Literary Supplement

'Essential reading for the early years of the twenty-first century' Scotland on Sunday

'Told with a dry wit that enhances, rather than disguises, the sadness of its story, The Tobacconist is a touching miniature of an ordinary life irrevocably altered by the larger forces of history' Sunday Times

Résumé
From the bestselling author of A Whole Life, a moving account of an ordinary young man living through extraordinary times, and the lengths we will go to in order to protect what we love.