Abacus serves up Kathy Wang’s The Satisfaction Café 

Anna Kelly at Abacus has acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to The Satisfaction Café by Kathy Wang, from Felicity Blunt at Curtis Brown on behalf of Michelle Brower at Trellis Literary Management. It will publish in June 2025. 

Following the life of one woman, from her immigration to California from Taiwan, and then through two marriages (the first short and disastrous, the second longer and complicated), The Satisfaction Café is a novel “about family, the joy and loneliness that come with age, and the gravity a single existence can have in many lives”, according to the publisher. 

Kelly said: “The storytelling in this novel is so rich, the tones varied from wry and sunny to cool, brutal or wistful by turns. Joan is a wonderful creation – a hard-nosed survivor with tender inner depths – and the novel’s view moves confidently between a long lens sweeping across the years and an intimate closeness to characters’ thoughts in individual moments. I was immersed in this entertaining and satisfying family story.” 

Wang added: “I am delighted that The Satisfaction Café has found a home with the brilliant Anna Kelly and Abacus Books, the publisher of so many works I admire. I put my heart into this novel, and am very happy to have it published in the UK.”