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KATE MUESER
Writer, Literary Translator, Presenter & Speaker, Musician
Novels
The Girl with Twenty Fingers
Sarah’s hope of becoming a concert pianist was shattered when she bombed an important performance of a Mozart concerto. Now in Munich, she feels like an imposter in her job as a food magazine editor. A chance encounter in a music shop leads to a surprising friendship with an elderly widower with a unique grand piano. When they start meeting to play Mozart’s works for four hands, Sarah unravels the mysteries of his war-time past, uproots a musical secret in her own family — and finds the strength to redirect her own future.
Laced with melodies from Mozart and Schumann to Toto and Nena, The Girl with Twenty Fingers will delight readers, while asking the question: Can music change lives? Kate Mueser’s debut novel cracks open notions of failure and second chances, living to the fullest and dying without regrets, and cultural identity and privilege, making it both timeless and urgently relevant to our age.
Music, family, cultural identity and second chances are central themes in my work. I am currently completing two music-centered novels.
"An engrossing and dynamic multi-layered tale of love, loss, and the intricacies that come along with each, The Girl with Twenty Fingers follows a woman who finds her way back to music and herself through the unlikeliest of friendships. Filled with wonderfully flawed characters and lyrical prose, Mueser’s debut is sure to delight the senses. A must read for fans who love stories about secrets, family and second chances."
Kerry Lonsdale
Wall Street Journal, Washington Post & Amazon Charts Bestselling Author
"In Kate Mueser's Munich, strangers become friends, Mozart brings distant generations together, and piano duets underscore the doubts and hopes of asymmetrical human history. ... But who in the story gives and who receives the greatest gift?"
Virginia Euwer Wolff
National Book Award-winning author of The Mozart Season
"A vivid, endearing portrayal of two distant worlds colliding through the universal language of music. Sarah and Herr Steinmann bridge a generational divide, and some deep historical wounds, through a wonderfully conceived musical collaboration."
Stuart Braun
Author of City of Exiles: Berlin from the outside in
Literary Translations
As a literary translator, I specialize in long-format fiction with a focus on music of all kinds. My translation of former UN diplomat Christian Much’s innovative and multi-layered musicological novel, Goin’ Home and Far Away, went to print in 2024.
Speaking & Presenting
I have hosted panels and events for major international organizations including UNESCO, Frankfurt Book Fair, Germany’s National Anti Doping Agency, Deutsche Welle’s Global Media Forum and the Development and Peace Foundation (sef).
As a bilingual (English/German) TV presenter, I hosted Deutsche Welle’s popular music program PopXport, the web video series Meet the Germans, and the award-winning documentary film Gutenberg in the Cyberstorm about the future of the book in the digital age.
I also hosted and produced Deutsche Welle’s youth radio show Pulse, highlighting Germany’s young music talent. My popular YouTube channel, featuring the #thoseGermans series, received over one million views.
About Kate
The intersection of music and language is the Leitfaden in my work. Years ago as a piano student at Indiana University, I jumped at the chance to accompany the German diction class and as many singers as I could find, and I asked the department head whether program-related poetry could be read during my degree recital.
Of course not, he said, that was simply not done.
So I played the all-piano recital, earned my degree, and later founded a salon in my apartment, where friends gathered to share their creativity. In between, there was a masters degree at Columbia University, with a thesis on how the arts can strengthen the German-Polish friendship.
During my 11 years as a culture journalist with German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, I gravitated toward lit/music projects. I presented the German pop music TV show PopXport, interviewed world-class musicians like Lorin Maazel and Samy Deluxe, went viral with articles and videos on fabulous German words, interviewed the coolest up-and-coming bands on my radio show Pulse, and presented the award-winning documentary film Gutenberg in the Cyberstorm about books in the digital age.
Since then, I have authored three novels and translated a fourth, all anchored in music from Mozart to Wozzeck to Stevie Wonder.
While my roots are in California’s Bay Area, I have lived in Indiana, New York, Nevada and Austria, but Germany has been home for two decades. Currently I reside near Munich, where I listen to my favorite British singer-songwriter nonstop and fuel my word games with gobs of good, whole-grain bread.
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