Olga
About this ebook
'Bernhard Schlink speaks straight to the heart' New York Times
'Brilliant... A tale of love and loss in 20th century Germany' Evening Standard
'A cleverly-constructed tale of cross-class romance' Mail on Sunday
'A poignant portrait of a woman out of step with her time' Observer
Olga is an orphan raised by her grandmother in a Prussian village around the turn of the 20th century. Smart and precocious, she fights against the prejudices of the time to find her place in a world that sees her as second-best.
When she falls in love with Herbert, a local aristocrat obsessed with the era's dreams of power, glory and greatness, her life is irremediably changed.
Theirs is a love against all odds, entwined with the twisting paths of German history, leading us from the late 19th to the early 21st century, from Germany to Africa and the Arctic, from the Baltic Sea to the German south-west.
This is the story of that love, of Olga's devotion to a restless man - told in thought, letters and in a fateful moment of great rebellion.
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About the author
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 the internationally bestselling novels The Reader, which became an Oscar-winning film starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes, and The Woman on the Stairs. His latest novel, Olga, was a no.1 international bestseller. He lives in Berlin and New York.
CHARLOTTE COLLINS studied English Literature at Cambridge University, and was an actor and radio journalist in Germany and the UK before becoming a literary translator. She was awarded the Goethe-Institut's Helen & Kurt Wolff Prize in 2017 for her translation of Robert Seethaler's A Whole Life. Other translations include Bernhard Schlink's Olga, The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischvili and Darkenbloom by Eva Menasse.
