Book Club Guide

The Reader

by Bernhard Schlink · 1995 · Literary Fiction

Key themes

Illiteracy as the secret that explains everything — and nothing
German guilt, inherited and earned
The older woman and the boy — and what the age gap conceals

About this book

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.

Published in German in 1995 and English in 1997, The Reader was the first German novel to reach number one on the New York Times bestseller list. It is widely assigned in A-level and university courses across Europe and America.

Discussion questions

Hanna hides her illiteracy, which Michael discovers only at her trial. How does Schlink develop the relationship between her secret and her wartime actions — and does the illiteracy explain or excuse?
The novel raises the question of how the generation born after the Holocaust should relate to the perpetrators — especially those they loved. How does Schlink develop this through Michael's position?
Michael's silence at the trial — his failure to tell what he knows — is the novel's moral centre. How does Schlink develop this failure — and does the novel judge Michael?
The Reader has been criticised for humanising a Holocaust perpetrator in ways that risk deflecting from the scale of the crime. How do you engage with this critique?
The novel is very short but very dense in implication. What does Schlink leave out — and does the compression serve or evade the subject?