"Two world wars and the passage of more than a century do not
overshadow [Bernhard Schlink's] story of lovers who never fully belong
to each other, just as they never fully belonged to the
world."--Booklist
"A brilliant novel about history and the nature of memory."--Evening
Standard
A sweeping novel of love and passion from author of the international
bestseller The Reader about a woman out of step with her time, whose
life is witness to some of the most tumultuous events of modern age.
Abandoned by her parents, young Olga is raised by her grandmother in a
Prussian village in the early years of the twentieth century. Smart and
precocious, endearing but uncompromising, she fights against ingrained
chauvinism to find her place in a world run by lesser men.
When Olga falls in love with her neighbor, Herbert, the son of a local
aristocrat, her life is irremediably changed. While Herbert indulges his
thirst for exploration and adventure, Olga is limited by her gender and
circumstance. Her love for Herbert goes against all odds and encounters
many obstacles, but even when they are separated, it endures
Unfolding across decades--from the late nineteenth to the early
twenty-first century--and across continents--from Germany to Africa and
the Arctic, from the Baltic Sea to the German south-west--Olga is an
epic romance, and a wrenching tale of a woman's devotion to a restless
man in an age of constant change. Though Olga exists in the shadows of
others, she pursues life to the fullest and her magnetic presence
shines--revealing a woman complex, fascinating, and unforgettable.
Told in three distinct parts, brilliantly shifting from different points
of view and narrative formats, Bernhard Schlink's magnificent novel is a
rich, full portrait of a singular woman and her world.
Translated from the German by Charlotte Collins
