The Reader
- 206
- Pages
- about 4 h
- Reading time
- Film 2008
- On screen
- Hans Fallada Prize
- Eeva Joenpelto Prize
- Evangelischer Buchpreis
- Prix Laure Bataillon
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Editor’s note Bernhard Schlink, a law professor and judge, published it in 1995. A teenage affair between Michael Berg and Hanna, an older woman, turns into something else when he finds her years later on trial as a former concentration-camp guard. After Oprah Winfrey chose it for her book club in 1999, it became the first German novel to reach number one on The New York Times bestseller list. Kate Winslet won an Oscar for the 2008 film The Reader.
About the book
The Reader is a novel by German law professor and judge Bernhard Schlink, published in 1995. The story is a parable dealing with the difficulties post-war German generations have had comprehending the Holocaust; Ruth Franklin writes that it was aimed specifically at the generation Bertolt Brecht called the Nachgeborenen. Like other novels in the genre of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, The Reader explores how the post-war generations should approach the generation that took part in, or witnessed, the atrocities. These are the questions at the heart of Holocaust literature in the late 20th and early 21st century, as the victims and witnesses died and living memory was fading.
On screen
This book has been adapted for the screen once.
- FilmThe ReaderIMDb
Adaptation data: Wikidata · On screen →
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.