Olga

Olga, born in a Silesian town in the late nineteenth century, grows up as an orphan in a Prussian society with strict class divisions. She falls in love with Herbert, the son of a wealthy landowner, who dreams of exploring the Arctic. Their relationship, which crosses class lines, is told in three parts, covering her childhood, her love and her later years, when a narrator who had known her as an elderly woman looks back at documents and letters. Schlink uses the story to show German history from the Empire to the postwar period.

It suits readers who like historical fiction with a strong female protagonist and who enjoy Schlink's earlier novel The Reader.

Deep, inward-looking, contemplative and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

Best for readers like The Mindful Reader. Which reader are you?