The Reader by Bernhard Schlink tells the story of Michael Berg, a fifteen-year-old German boy who falls ill and is helped by Hanna, a woman twice his age. Their passionate affair deepens as Michael reads classic literature aloud to her, until Hanna mysteriously disappears. Years later, as a law student, Michael encounters Hanna again—in a courtroom, on trial as a former SS guard accused of Nazi war crimes. As the trial unfolds, Michael confronts painful questions about guilt, love, and moral responsibility. A profound meditation on Germany's struggle with its past, the novel explores how ordinary people commit extraordinary evils.
