The Reader
by Bernhard Schlink · 1995
Literary Fiction · ranked #171 in category
Fifteen-year-old Michael Berg in postwar Germany has an affair with Hanna Schmitz, a tram conductor twenty years his senior, who asks him to read aloud to her. Years later he discovers her in a war crimes trial, and realises what the reading meant and what she was hiding. Schlink's novella is one of the most read and most debated books about German guilt, literacy and the generation born after the Holocaust.
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The verdict
- Category
- Literary Fiction
- Author
- Bernhard Schlink
- Standing
- Essential Read
About Literary Fiction
Literary fiction sits at the intersection of fine writing and serious storytelling — novels that reward attention and stay with you long after the last page. These are the books that alter your sense of what's possible in prose.
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