Book of the month 2003

© Orion

When fifteen year old Michael contracts hepatitis he falls ill in the street. A woman in her early thirties rescues him and brings him home. Once Michael has recovered he visits the woman to thank her for her help. His second encounter with Hanna leads to a sexual affair which ends apruptly when she suddenly disappears. Michael is very distraught by her disappearance and the memory of the affair overshadows his subsequent relationships with women.

Years later Michael and a couple of fellow law students attend trials of former concentration camp guards. Trying to come to terms with Germany's past they hope to come a little closer to the truth and see justice finally being delivered. Michael soon becomes involved on a very personal basis since Hanna is one of the defendants.

Bernhard Schlink's concise and unadorned prose is almost deceptively simple considering the novel's main theme of how to deal with guilt or the implication of guilt. The international success of the book is less due to the story itself which is unusual enough to be remarkable, but the penetrating analyses and subtle interpretations of events by the narrator. Unique as his experience may be his struggle to come to grips with the past, his own and his country's, is representative of that of many Germans who were born after the war.

Bernhard Schlink is Professor of Law and a judge of the German Constitutional Court. He read excerpts from his novel and talked to Colm Toibin during the Dublin Writer's Festival.

Bibliografic Details
German	Englisch Translation
Hardcover: Schlink, Bernhard: Der Vorleser. Diogenes, Zürich, 2002 ISBN 3-257-05608-7 EUR 10,00	Hardcover: Schlink, Bernhard: The Reader. Phoenix House, London, 1997 ISBN 1-861-59063-6 EUR 19,95
Paperback: Schlink, Bernhard: Der Vorleser. Diogenes, Zürich, 2002 ISBN 3-257-22953-4 EUR 7,90	Paperback: Schlink, Bernhard: The Reader. Orion, London, 1998 ISBN 0-7538-0470-0 EUR 11,90
Audio-CD: Schlink, Bernhard: Der Vorleser. Diogenes, Zürich, 2002 ISBN 3-257-80004-5 EUR 24,90	Audiotape: Schlink, Bernhard: The Reader. Randomhouse Audio, New York, 1999 ISBN 3-75-40828-2 EUR 20,80