Předčítač – Schlink Bernhard (2019)

At the very beginning of Bernhard Schlink’s novel stands an intensely personal event: a bout of jaundice. As the story unfolds, however, it reaches beyond the private sphere to touch on the fate and conscience of one of Europe’s greatest nations. When fifteen-year-old Michael Berg falls ill in the street, he is helped by Hanna Schmitz. He later seeks her out, and their meetings develop into a love affair that is unequal and exceptional, with more than twenty years separating them. Although Hanna works as a tram conductor and is evidently not highly educated, she asks her lover to read books aloud to her in his free time. Hanna later disappears under mysterious circumstances, and Michael encounters her again as a law student in the late 1960s, at the trial of Nazi war criminals. After its publication, The Reader received sharply divided responses, from enthusiastic comparisons with Grass’s The Tin Drum to criticism that the book morally levels the relationship between victims and murderers. Whatever position its readers take, this range of opinions clearly shows that The Reader remains a vital work that unsettles and raises questions. This Czech-language edition is intended for adult readers.