SYNOPSIS

Germany, late 1950s. Michael Berg is a fifteen-year-old boy who one day meets a thirty-year-old blonde, blue-eyed woman named Hanna Schmitz. An intense physical attraction develops between the two, which they cultivate in her apartment following a precise ritual in which they bathe in the tub, make love and Michael reads aloud the classics of German literature. Then one day Hanna leaves her apartment without saying anything and Michael despairs. He tries to forget her, throws himself headlong into his university studies in law and then, after a few years, he sees her again in a courtroom, where Hanna is accused of war crimes.

REVIEW

A story told in a lucid and flowing way in the first person that intrigues, page after page, until the moving ending.
The first-person narrator clearly expresses his thoughts and emotions, and in this way also offers a partial point of view of the story’s antagonist and allows the reader to better understand the complicated relationship between the two protagonists. The characters are well defined, and it is easy to identify with their lives. The dialogues are few, but with indirect speech, the narrator manages to convey moods and maintain high interest in reading.