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The Granddaughter
- Author
- Bernhard Schlink
- Narrator
- Richard Burnip, Sarah Moules
- Publisher
- Orion
- Publish Date
- 24 October 2024
- Run Time
- 10 hours 17 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
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What to expect
'The great novel of German reunification' Le Figaro
'A masterpiece' Maurice Szafran
May, 1964. At a youth festival in East Berlin, an unlikely young couple fall in love. In the bright spring days, anything seems possible for them - it is only many years later, after her death, that Kaspar discovers the price his wife paid to get to him in West Berlin.
Shattered by grief, Kaspar sets off to uncover Birgit's secrets in the East. His search leads him to a rural community of neo-Nazis, and to a young girl who accepts him as her grandfather. Their worlds could not be more different - but he is determined to fight for her.
From the author of the no.1 international bestseller The Reader, The Granddaughter is a gripping novel that transports us from the divided Germany of the 1960s to contemporary Australia, asking what might be found when it seems like all is lost.
Translated from the German by Charlotte Collins
Critics Review
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A complex, poignant narrative that plays out in communist East Berlin in the 1960s and the neo-Nazi scene of the present day
Financial Times
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Schlink, author of The Reader, serves up another tale of buried secrets in this decades spanning saga of a German bookseller confronted with his late wife's hushed-up heartache. When he learns that she was already pregnant when they met in 1960s Berlin - she from the east, he from the west - the discovery prompts a quest for the unknown child, as intimate marital drama morphs into the story of a divided nation.
Mail on Sunday
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Highly topical in its focus on neo-Nazis in present day Germany and the lingering divisions between East and West 34 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall . . . The Granddaughter asks many important questions, including one that feels very pertinent right now with the rise of far-right groups: "Was society failing to provide young people with a positive experience of community?"
Sunday Times
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Wonderfully readable . . . Schlink remains a perceptive chronicler of modern Germany
Guardian
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The Granddaughter's premise will feel familiar to readers of Schlink's previous novels - including the bestselling The Reader (1995) . . . many of which use individual relationships as proxies for examining the ongoing legacies of World War II and the Cold War in his native country. . . . [Schlink] writes instructive tales that adeptly raise difficult questions and propose appealing answers
New York Times Book Review
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Schlink's timing is . . . astute. The rise of antisemitism and right-wing nationalism across Europe and the US imbues The Granddaughter with a wider, more profound resonance
Wall Street Journal
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Bernhard Schlink
- Narrator
- Richard Burnip, Sarah Moules
- Duration
- 10 hours 17 minutes
- Release Date
- 24 October 2024
- ISBN
- 9781399614894
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Orion
- Genre
- Modern and contemporary fiction: literary and general, Fiction in translation
Synopsis
'Anyone who wants to understand contemporary Germany must read The Granddaughter now' Le Monde 'The great novel of German reunification' Le Figaro 'A masterpiece' Maurice SzafranMay, 1964. At a youth festival in East Berlin, an unlikely young couple fall in love. In the bright spring days, anything seems possible for them - it is only many years later, after her death, that Kaspar discovers the price his wife paid to get to him in West Berlin. Shattered by grief, Kaspar sets off to uncover Birgit's secrets in the East. His search leads him to a rural community of neo-Nazis, and to a young girl who accepts him as her grandfather. Their worlds could not be more different - but he is determined to fight for her. From the author of the no.1 international bestseller The Reader, The Granddaughter is a gripping novel that transports us from the divided Germany of the 1960s to contemporary Australia, asking what might be found when it seems like all is lost.Translated from the German by Charlotte Collins
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