Bernhard Schlink Boeken

Een jongeman kijkt terug op de relatie die hij tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog als 15-jarige had met een 36-jarige vrouw met geheimen.

Hij eet graag kersentaart met slagroom en steekt daarna met evenveel genoegen een Sweet Afton op. Gerhard Selb, zestig jaar, privé-detective, schaker, kattenvriend, heeft zo zijn gewoonten – en waarom ook niet. Alles om hem heen verandert in een ras tempo en hij vreest de naderende ouderdom. Drie, vier opdrachten per jaar is alles wat er voor hem nog inzit. Na de oorlog wil niemand meer iets met hem, de ex-nazi-jurist Selb, te maken hebben, maar tegen de tijd dat de nazi-rechters weer op hun oude pluche terugkeren, wil hij op zijn beurt niets meer van zijn vroegere collega's weten. Niettemin lijkt het telkens weer alsof hij niet genoeg geboet heeft voor zijn oude zonden: zijn verleden blijft hem bij elke zaak achtervolgen, bij een aanslag door anarcho-terroristen, bij een milieuschandaal, bij het faillissement van een bekende bank. Een oudere heer, Gerhard Selb, wordt in zijn bescheiden carrière als privé-detective telkens weer geconfronteerd met het verleden van zijn land – een personage zoals alleen Bernhard Schlink beschrijven kan. De drie romans die hij aan Selb wijdt, schetsen een indringend beeld van vijftig jaar geschiedenis, de moeilijke naoorlogse jaren, de wederopbouw, het optimistische 'vooruit', de tegenslagen. Bij elke nieuwe zaak die Selb moet oplossen, blijven de oude kwesties spelen, de vragen naar schuld en boete, rouw en vergeving.

Set against the backdrop of German reunification, this novel delves into the complexities of identity, belonging, and the personal ramifications of historical change. It weaves together poignant narratives that explore the struggles and transformations faced by individuals during this pivotal moment in history. The author, known for their bestselling work "The Reader," brings a rich tapestry of characters and emotional depth, capturing the essence of a nation in transition and the intertwined fates of its people.

A conversation between strangers on a long-haul flight will change lives for ever; one night in Baden-Baden will threaten to tear a couple apart; a meeting with an ex-lover will give a divorcee a second chance; holiday lovers will struggle in the harsh reality of daily routine... As Schlink's characters navigate their lives, we discover the many faces of love: the small betrayals, hidden truths and abiding affections. In Schlink's trademark spare prose, we come face-to-face with the desires and jealousies that define our daily lives, with the fragility of happiness, and with the abiding possibility of hope. Tender yet unsentimental, achingly personal yet utterly universal, SUMMER LIES asks what it means to love, to deceive and ultimately, to be human.

Schlink, internationally acclaimed and bestselling author of "The Reader, " brings a sleek concision and moral acuity to these seven tales of modern men uneasily suspended between the desire for love and the impulse toward flight. Brooding, comic, and filled with psychological suspense, "Plights of Love" is nothing less than masterful.

Olga is an orphan raised by her grandmother in a Prussian village around the turn of the 20th century. Smart and precocious, she fights against the prejudices of the time to find her place in a world that sees her as second-best. When she falls in love with Herbert, a local aristocrat obsessed with the era's dreams of power, glory and greatness, her life is irremediably changed. Theirs is a love against all odds, entwined with the twisting paths of German history, leading us from the late 19th to the early 21st century, from Germany to Africa and the Arctic, from the Baltic Sea to the German south-west. This is the story of that love, of Olga's devotion to a restless man - told in thought, letters and in a fateful moment of great rebellion.

Gerhard Self, the Sweet-Afton smoking, sambuca-swilling, most unlikely of PIs is back in a new tale of deception and intrigue, set against the backdrop of post-reunification Germany. After a chance encounter with the owner of a prestigious private bank, the now septuagenarian detective is enlisted to delve into the institution's history, apparently in the name of a book to commemorate the bank's foundation. But his seemingly anodyne brief - to discover the identity of a sleeping partner from several decades before - throws up far more questions than answers. As it becomes clear that the sleeping partner is in no way the most mysterious aspect of the bank's history, Self begins to suspect his mission may have been but a ruse to lure him into the shady world of the bank's enigmatic masters - a certain Herr Welker and his steely Russian foster brother Samarin. Trying in vain to extricate himself and his increasingly shaky heart from the web of deceit - and to work out who really is the baddie of the piece - Self is thrown headlong into a tale of money-laundering, murder and mafiosi. But who is blackmailing whom? Did Welker's wife really die in a tragic accident? And why is a washed-up old Stasi man pretending to be Self's long-lost son? Join Gerhard, the irascible armchair philosopher, on his most danegrous and far-reaching mission to date.

As a child raised by his mother in post-war Germany, Peter Debauer becomes fascinated by a story he discovers in the proof pages of a novel edited by his grandparents. It is the tale of a German prisoner of war who escapes from a Russian camp and braves countless dangers to return home to a wife who believes him to be dead. But the novel is incomplete and Peter becomes obsessed by the question of what happened when the soldier and his wife met again. Years later, the adult Peter remembers the novel and embarks on a search for the missing pages that soon becomes a mysterious search for his own father, a German soldier whom he always believed was killed in the war.

For decades the painting was believed to be lost. But, just as mysteriously as it disappeared, it reappears, an anonymous donation to a gallery in Sydney. The art world is stunned but so are the three men who loved the woman in the painting, the woman on the stairs. One by one they track her down to an isolated cottage in Australia. Here they must try to untangle the lies and betrayals of their shared past - but time is running out. The Woman on the Stairs is an intricately-crafted, poignant and beguiling novel about creativity and love, about the effects of time passing and the regrets that haunt us all.