Bernhard Schlink
Monday, March 20, 2017, 2 pm
Donald P. Shiley BioScience Center Gold Auditorium
San Diego State University
Acclaimed German Novelist Bernhard Schlink will speak about his latest novel, The Woman on the Stairs, a powerful exploration of obsession, creativity, and love. Moving between West Germany in the late 1960s − the era of the student movement, anti-Vietnam War protests, violent domestic terrorist attacks − and contemporary Australia, the novel plots alternate pathways into the present rooted in the same turbulent moment in time.
Bernhard Schlink’s background as a former constitutional court justice and a legal scholar informs the clarity and incisiveness of his poetic language, as well as the moral questions he raises. Professor Schlink teaches law and legal philosophy at the Humboldt University in Berlin and at the Benjamin N. Cardoza School of Law in New York City. He is best known for his 1995 novel The Reader, a story of love and secrets, horror, and compassion, unfolding against the haunted landscape of postwar Germany. It became the first German novel to reach #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. The 2008 film adaptation, directed by Stephen Daldry, starred Ralph Fiennes and Kate Winslet, whose performance earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress.
