The Reader
ABOUT
THE BOOK
A schoolboy in post-war Germany, Michael Berg has a secretive affair with an older woman, Hanna. He learns little about her, but is shocked and somehow guilty when she simply disappears. Some years later, as a law student, Michael is in court to follow a major case. To his amazement he recognises Hanna as one of the defendants. Her attitude during the trial is bizarre, as she allows herself be presented as the ringleader of her co-defendants and seems to be wilfully mishandling her defence. Michael suddenly understands that her behaviour conceals a secret buried deeper even than her terrible crimes. The past of their relationship and of Germany trap Michael for the rest of his life, haunted by the memories of a relationship that he cannot move beyond and by the dilemma of an entire generation. Bernhard Schlink was born in 1944. He is a Professor of Law at the University of Berlin.
Original title in German Der Vorleser published by Diogenes Verlag (1995)
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Carol
Brown Janeway
Carol Brown Janeway, a prize-winning editor, translator and foreign rights director at Knopf Doubleday, died on August 3, 2015. She was 71 years old. She was renowned in the publishing world for her dedication to literature in translation.
The first book she translated for Knopf after joining the publisher in 1970 was Das Boot by Lothar-Günther Buchheim. She also translated The Reader by Bernhard Schlink, My Prizes by Thomas Bernhard, Crime by Ferdinand von Schirach, The Storm by Margriet de Moor, and Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlmann, among others.
Carol Brown Janeway, a prize-winning editor, translator and foreign rights director at Knopf Doubleday, died on August 3, 2015. She was 71 years old. She was renowned in the publishing world for her dedication to literature in translation.
The first book she translated for Knopf after joining the publisher in 1970 was Das Boot by Lothar-Günther Buchheim. She also translated The Reader by Bernhard Schlink, My Prizes by Thomas Bernhard, Crime by Ferdinand von Schirach, The Storm by Margriet de Moor, and Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlmann, among others.