In conversation with Bernhard Schlink

German-language literature is the guest of honour at the Foire du Livre, which takes place from 13 to 16 March in Tour & Taxis, Brussels. Under the motto ‘Wanderlust: Voyager à travers la littérature de la langue allemande’, 16 German-language authors, illustrators and spoken word artists from Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Austria will be travelling to Brussels.

The Goethe-Institut Brussels, together with the Frankfurter Buchmesse, is also inviting the German author Bernhard Schlink to the Brussels Book Fair with his novel  ‘Die Enkelin’, which was published in 2023, as part of its Europanetzwerk Deutsch programme.

Internationally renowned since the 1990s for his bestseller ‘The Reader’, which was made into a film, Bernhard Schlink is one of the best-known German-language authors in the French-speaking world. In ‘The Granddaughter’, he resurrects the ghosts of the GDR, reunification and the Third Reich. A powerful novel in which a family drama penetrates deep into the current reality of a Europe dominated by the rise of the far right.

Bernhard Schlink will be signing books from 16:50 - 17:20.

Bernhard Schlink, born in Bielefeld in 1944, is a lawyer and writer. His first novel ‘Selbs Justiz’ was published in 1987 and his 1995 novel ‘Der Vorleser’ was translated into over 50 languages, won national and international awards and was made into a film with Kate Winslet and David Kross. Bernhard Schlink taught public law and philosophy of law at universities in Bonn, Frankfurt and Berlin and was a judge at the Constitutional Court for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in Münster from 1987 to 2005.

This event is kindly supported by the German Embassy in Brussels.