The Reader

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Originally published in Switzerland and gracefully translated into English by Carol Brown Janeway, this brief tale explores themes of sex, love, reading, and shame in post-war Germany. At 15, Michael Berg embarks on a long, obsessive affair with Hanna, an enigmatic older woman. When she unexpectedly disappears, he assumes he will never see her again. However, his world is upended when Hanna becomes a defendant in a trial connected to Germany's Nazi past, revealing her guilt in an unspeakable crime. As Michael follows the trial, he grapples with a profound question: how should his generation confront the Holocaust? The narrative challenges the notion of comprehending the incomprehensible and questions whether silence in revulsion, shame, and guilt serves any purpose. Winning the Boston Book Review's Fisk Fiction Prize, the story delves into the complexities of loving those—parents, grandparents, lovers—who have committed horrific atrocities. It raises the question of whether literature can offer any form of atonement. Schlink’s prose is clean and stripped of excess, creating an austerely beautiful narrative that attempts to bridge the gap between Germany's pre and post-war generations, the guilty and the innocent, and the realms of words and silence.