The Reader

The Reader is a novel published in 1995 by the German jurist and writer Bernhard Schlink, regarded as one of the most widely read works in postwar German literature of "coming to terms with history." The story takes place in postwar West Germany: fifteen-year-old Michael, sick and vomiting in the street, is helped by thirty-six-year-old tram conductor Hanna; once recovered, he visits her to thank her, and the two begin a secret affair across the age gap. When they meet, Michael reads aloud to Hanna from literary classics such as the Odyssey and War and Peace, and reading aloud becomes the most distinctive and enduring bond between them. Soon afterward, Hanna disappears without a word. Eight years later, Michael, now in law school and interning at a court, sees her again from the gallery of a trial of Nazi war criminals: Hanna is one of the defendants. To everyone's surprise, she confesses and accepts guilt, even preferring a heavier charge to writing in court. Michael gradually comes to understand the secret she is desperate to hide—and that he can choose between revealing the truth and keeping silent. Divided into Part One, Part Two, and Part Three, the novel proceeds in a cool, restrained, almost documentary style, weaving together love, shame, guilt, generational memory, and the legitimacy of judgment. It offers no cheap forgiveness, but leaves the reader, together with the narrator, lingering between understanding and condemnation. The original has been translated into dozens of languages; it was the first German novel to top the New York Times bestseller list, and was adapted into a film of the same name in 2008.