The Last Movement
Robert Seethaler
Available as Paperback, eBook
9 April 2026
The international bestselling author of A Whole Life, The Tobacconist and The Café with No Name returns with a moving portrait of an artist at the end of his life, aboard a ship for his final journey from New York to Europe
It is 1911, and a man boards a ship at the crowded docks in New York City. As he steps on board, the memories begin flooding back, and we learn he is no ordinary man, and this is no ordinary journey.
This transatlantic sailing is the poignant final journey of Gustav Mahler, a renowned composer at the end of his life. He considers the joy and loss he experienced with his wife, Alma, the meaning of art, and the significance of legacy. This culminates in a humbling meditation on the enduring impact of our choices.
“Praise for Robert Seethaler: ‘Filled with truth after truth, poignantly rendered and given to us with tender open-handedness. Seethaler is in his very own league, capturing a place and time that is ultimately universal’”
Elizabeth Strout
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“A poet of the small, the random and the event without consequence, [Seethaler’s] is a world we can all enjoy”
guardian
“Seethaler’s literary preoccupations [can be placed] alongside writers such as Claire Keegan, John Berger or John Williams”
financial Times
“The prose has the stillness of a Vermeer … In a world of action movies and social media there’s little time for quiet contemplation. Seethaler reminds us we’re part of a whole”
spectator
“Seethaler renders a life at once ordinary and exquisite, exploring the vagaries of solitude with a gentle humility”
times Literary Supplement
Robert Seethaler
Robert Seethaler was born in Vienna in 1966 and is the author of several 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, Seethaler’s novel The Café with No Name was an instant number one bestseller, spending 44 weeks on the bestseller list. His works have been translated into over 40 languages.
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 is best known for her translation of International Booker shortlisted Robert Seethaler’s A Whole Life and was the recipient of the Helen & Kurt Wolff’s Translator’s Prize in 2017. She lives in London.