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Fall Literary Series Benefiting
826 Valencia Scholarship Program

Cultural Studies

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California Academy of
Science Series

 Herbst Theatre

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Bernard Schlink

In conversation with Roy Eisenhardt

CANCELLED

Bernhard Schlink was born in Germany in 1944. He is a part of the generation that bears what Germans call "the second guilt," those who grew up in the shadow of their parents' complicity in the Holocaust. "The theme of collective guilt, of what the first generation did means for the second generation, has been on my mind for a long, long time," says Schlink. The former judge and Public Law professor focused on the theme of guilt in his internationally-bestselling novel The Reader. The morally complex book, which begins "When I was 15, I got hepatitis," follows a German student, Michael, who collapses on a sidewalk and is rescued by a woman more than twice his age. This encounter begins a romantic relationship (she continually asks him to read to her) until the woman suddenly vanishes. Years later, Michael and the older woman reunite when she is charged with war crimes. The partly autobiographical novel has been translated into thirty-nine languages and was selected for Oprah's Book Club. Schlink is also the author of the short fiction collection Flights of Love as well as several compelling detective stories that are now being translated into English. His most recent novel Homecoming reflects on the secrecy of families, the longing for redemption, and the difficulty of returning home in postwar Germany.

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