For 15-year-old Michael Berg, a chance meeting with an older woman leads to far more than he ever imagined. The woman in question is Hanna, and before long they embark on a passionate, clandestine love affair which leaves Michael both euphoric and confused. For Hanna is not all she seems. Years later, as a law student observing a trial in Germany, Michael is shocked to realize that the person in the dock is Hanna. The woman he had loved is a criminal. Much about her behaviour during the trial does not make sense. But then suddenly, and terribly, it does - Hanna is not only obliged to answer for a horrible crime, she is also desperately concealing an even deeper secret. A tender, horrifying novel that shows blazingly well how the Holocaust should be dealt with in fiction. A thriller, a love story and a deeply moving examination of a German conscience.
Неожиданно вспыхнувший роман меж пятнадцатилетним ребенком, мальчуганом из профессорской семьи, и зрелой дамой так же неожиданно оборвался, когда она без предостережения исчезла из городка. Через восемь лет он, сейчас теснее студент выпускного курса юридического факультета, опять увидел ее - посреди былых надзирательниц дамского концлагеря на процессе против нацистских законопреступников. Но это не единственная скрыта, которая открылась герою романа Бернхарда Шлинка "Чтец".