A Whole Life
Robert Seethaler
Available as Paperback, eBook, Downloadable audio
9 April 2026
Shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize and a global bestseller; for fans of Stoner by John Williams
Andreas Egger knows every path and peak of his mountain valley, the source of his sustenance, his livelihood – his home.
Set in the mid-twentieth century and told with beauty and tenderness, Robert Seethaler’s A Whole Life is a story of man’s relationship with an ancient landscape, of the value of solitude, of the arrival of the modern world, and above all, of the moments, great and small, that make us who we are.
“A lovely contemplation of a life in solitude in a remote valley, into which the modern world slowly intrudes”
Ian Mcewan
See more reviews
“Deeply moving”
sunday Times
“Magically captures the universal in all our lives. A slim masterpiece”
daily Mail
“As haunting and as spare as Stoner… No praise is too high for A Whole Life. Its daunting beauty lingers. This is a profound, wise and humane novel that no reader will forget”
Eileen Battersby
irish Times
“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”
Jim Crace
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 Robert Seethaler’s A Whole Life, shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, and was a recipient of the Helen & Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize in 2017. She lives in London.