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The Tobacconist

The Tobacconist

The Tobacconist

By Robert Seethaler
Translated by Charlotte Collins

"With The Tobacconist, Robert Seethaler has succeeded in writing a wholly coherent, condensed coming-of-age novel. Not a word is wasted."―Die Presse

"Robert Seethaler is a great storyteller who loves his characters, and he has a wonderful sense of the dramatic which never gets out of hand."―20 Minuten

"Robert Seethaler writes about all this in a way that is understated yet captivating and very poetically powerful, stylistically confident."―Junge Welt

From The Man Booker International Prize finalist Robert Seethaler comes a tender, heartbreaking story about one young man and his friendship with Sigmund Freud during the Nazi occupation of Vienna.

Seventeen-year-old Franz Huchel journeys to Vienna to apprentice at a tobacco shop. There he meets Sigmund Freud, a regular customer, and over time the two very different men form a singular friendship. When Franz falls desperately in love with the music-hall dancer Anezka, he seeks advice from the renowned psychoanalyst, who admits that the female sex is as big a mystery to him as it is to Franz.

As political and social conditions in Austria dramatically worsen with the Nazis’ arrival in Vienna, Franz, Freud, and Anezka are swept into the maelstrom of events. Each has a big decision to make: to stay or to flee?

Paperback
224 pages
House of Anansi Press, 2017
8.5 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
ISBN 9781487002510
Historical Fiction

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