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The Granddaughter: a Coronado Public Library Adventure featuring New York Times and international bestselling author Bernhard Schlink
April 22 @ 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
$28.99 – $32.99
About the Live, In-Person, Adventure
“…So I stopped talking about it. There’s no need to talk, because the truth of what one says lies in what one does.”
―
New York Times and internationally bestselling German author Bernhard Schlink stormed onto the U.S. literary scene when his book The Reader (1997) was selected as an Oprah pick and made into an Oscar-winning film featuring Ralph Fiennes and Kate Winslet. Since then, he has continued to write powerful and disquieting books that raise moral questions about Germany immediately following WWII.
As Bernhard returns with The Granddaughter, we invite you to join us for a very special event to discuss this striking exploration of the wounds of the past, told through the story of a German bookseller’s attempt to connect with his radicalized granddaughter.
“Anyone who wants to understand contemporary Germany must read The Granddaughter now.” – Le Monde
“The bard of his generation.” – New York Times
“A masterpiece.” – Maurice Szafran
“One of Germany’s foremost writers and thinkers.” – The Guardian
Registration
Registration for this event is FREE and open to the public, but seating is limited. Purchase a copy of The Granddaughter below to guarantee event admission and priority seating. Your book will be delivered to you at the event for signing and reserved seating. Books will also be available for purchase and signing at the event.
About the Author and Book
Bernhard Schlink was born in Germany in 1944. A professor emeritus of law at Humboldt University, Berlin, and Cardozo Law School, New York, he is the author of many internationally bestselling novels, including The Reader, which became an Oscar-winning film starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes, and The Woman on the Stairs.
His new novel, The Granddaughter, follows Kaspar who, only after the sudden death of his wife, Birgit, discovers the price she paid years earlier when she fled East Germany to join him: she had to abandon her baby. Shattered by grief, yet animated by a new hope, Kaspar closes up his bookshop in present day Berlin and sets off to find her lost child in the east.
His search leads him to a rural community of neo-Nazis, intent on reclaiming and settling ancestral lands to the East. Among them, Kaspar encounters Svenja, a woman whose eyes, hair, and even voice remind him of Birgit. Beside her is a red-haired, slouching, fifteen-year-old girl. His granddaughter? Their worlds could not be more different— an ideological gulf of mistrust yawns between them— but he is determined to accept her as his own.
More than twenty-five years after The Reader, Bernhard Schlink once again offers a masterfully gripping novel that powerfully probes the past’s role in contemporary life, transporting us from the divided Germany of the 1960s to modern day Australia, and asking what unites or separates us.
About the Coronado Public Library
The mission of the Coronado Public Library is to meet the informational, recreational, and cultural needs of the community and to actively promote reading, life-long learning, and the pursuit of knowledge.
