The Hotel Years

'A hugely significant and wonderfully haunting collection' - William Boyd

In the 1920s and 30s, Joseph Roth travelled extensively in Europe, leading a peripatetic life living in hotels and writing about the towns through which he passed. Incisive, nostalgic, curious, and sharply observed—and collected together here for the first time—his pieces paint a picture of a continent racked by change, yet clinging to tradition.

From the 'compulsive' exercise regime of the Albanian army, the rickety industry of the new oil capital of Galicia, and the "split and scalped" houses of Tirana forced into modernity, to the individual and idiosyncratic characters that Roth encounters in his hotel stays, these tender and quietly dazzling vignettes form a series of literary postcards written from a bygone world, creeping towards world war.

The Hotel Years captures the essence of an era through Roth's unique perspective, offering readers a glimpse into the past and the forces shaping it.