A reflection on family, history

BERNHARD Schlink’s latest novel, The Granddaughter, is set ina reunified Germany, yet still full of bitter divisions after the end of the Cold War.

- BEVERLEY ROOS-MULLER

His earlier, bestselling book, The Reader, was a masterpiece, and also one of despair; there was no time in which I thought it would end well and it didn't, even though I admired it very much.

The Granddaughter takes a while to reveal its message, yet the slow beginning is an important prelude: in the divided Berlin of the early 1960s a young student, Kaspar, fell in love with a girl in the Eastern sector and arranged to smuggle her to the West. Meanwhile she discovered she was pregnant and, fearing it would ruin her escape, gave up the baby girl for adoption. Later, they marry. Only after her death does Kaspar find out about this child, as he goes through her papers.