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A 200,000-copy German bestseller, A Whole Life follows one man´s simple yet extraordinary life.

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Shortlisted for the 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 by Robert Seethaler 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.

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Robert Seethaler´s quietly mesmerizing novel - elemental in both tone and subject - shows what joy and nobility can be found in a life of hardship, patience and bereavement. It is at once heart-rending and heart-warming. A Whole Life, for all its gentleness, is a very powerful book. Jim Crace

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Seethaler, Robert
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.

Collins, Charlotte
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.

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