'Bernhard Schlink speaks straight to the heart' New York Times Olga is an
orphan raised by her grandmother in a Prussian village around the turn of the
20th century. Smart and precocious, she fights against the prejudices of the
time to find her place in a world that sees her as second-best. When she falls
in love with Herbert, a local aristocrat obsessed with the era's dreams of
power, glory and greatness, her life is irremediably changed. Theirs is a love
against all odds, entwined with the twisting paths of German history, leading us
from the late 19th to the early 21st century, from Germany to Africa and the
Arctic, from the Baltic Sea to the German south-west. This is the story of that
love, of Olga's devotion to a restless man - told in thought, letters and in a
fateful moment of great rebellion.