Interview Bernhard Schlink

About the book

Martin, seventy-six years old and a renowned lawyer, is happily married and has no tendency to emotional outbursts of any kind. His younger wife is a successful painter, he meanwhile happily takes care of their six-year-old son David, he cooks and works in the garden. When he is told that he is terminally ill and has only a few months to live, his first, very recognizable question is: what do I give my wife and child? What is a gift for them, and what will be a burden? Will David cherish the beloved and twice-patched armchair or a painting by Martin's grandfather or throw it in the trash? Some days it is extremely difficult to learn to let go and tidy up. Even more difficult is the question: how do I want to be remembered by my loved ones? What is a successful life, how do you determine that? Martin knows: this is skating on thin ice. Het late leven is a moving and wise novel. Schlink's atmospheric storytelling makes this story about the big questions of life all the more impressive

Bernhard Schlink

Bernhard Schlink (Bielefeld, 1944) is emeritus professor of law at Humboldt University in Berlin. As a writer, he acquired worldwide fame fifteen years ago with his novel The Reader, the first foreign novel to remain at number one on the New York Times bestseller list for a long time. The film adaptation by Stephen Daldry, starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes, won an Oscar and a Golden Globe.

Schlink's novels The Homecoming and The First Weekend, the short story collections The Fall of Love and Summer Lies, the detective story The Old Sins and the essay Objective Legislation and Subjective Judges have since been published.