Stories
Explore Historic Cafes Where World-Famous Books Were Actually Penned
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CNBC TV18•11-10-2026, 10:25
Explore Historic Cafes Where World-Famous Books Were Actually Penned
- •Ernest Hemingway used La Closerie des Lilas in Paris as his daily workspace to write his 1926 breakthrough novel The Sun Also Rises.
- •Jean-Paul Sartre penned the bulk of his philosophical treatise Being and Nothingness at Café de Flore in Paris to escape unheated hotel rooms.
- •Modernist poet Peter Altenberg famously registered Café Central in Vienna as his legal residential address and had his mail delivered there.
- •Nobel laureate Camilo José Cela drafted scenes for his novel La Colmena at the legendary Gran Café Gijón in Madrid.
- •J.K. Rowling clarified that the earliest chapters of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone were handwritten at Nicolson's Café in Edinburgh.
Key Questions Answered
Ernest Hemingway used La Closerie des Lilas, a brasserie on Boulevard du Montparnasse in Paris, as his daily workspace to write his 1926 breakthrough novel, The Sun Also Rises.
Jean-Paul Sartre penned the bulk of his philosophical treatise Being and Nothingness at the Café de Flore in Paris by the central stove during the German Occupation.
Modernist poet and essayist Peter Altenberg formally registered Café Central in Vienna as his legal residential address and had his private mail delivered there.
