»Schlink is a brilliant stylist; this bittersweet love affair is deeply moving.« 

»Schlink was and is an author for readers who love intelligently told stories. And they won’t be disappointed by Olga.«

»An insightful novel about love, friendship, and almost a century of German history.«

»Olga is more the collective drama of a century than a personal destiny; the story this novel tells is that of history itself – narrated by the great historical confusions.«

»The fact that we can picture Olga before us so vividly is thanks to Bernhard Schlink's simple yet genius trick of employing four classic narrative perspectives – it’s almost a lesson in epic writing.«

»Olga is captivating. Bernhard Schlink tells the story in lucid, serene language.«

»With Olga, Bernhard Schlink broaches topics, about which little has been written, such as German colonialism, and the fate of German-speaking refugees from Eastern Europe.«

»Olga is a beautiful, polyphonic novel about highly unequal lovers.«

»Olga’s success – it is the most sold foreign title according to Datalib – is in large part due to the legitimate parallels [with The Reader], that instantly work.«

»Always economical with words and feelings, he evokes them precisely by keeping a certain distance.«

»[Schlink] takes up motifs from his most famous work The Reader (1995). Olga, who fights to be allowed to continue her education, seems like an alternative draft of the illiterate Hannah, whose lacking abilities led to her becoming a concentration camp guard during the Nazi era.«

LANGVERSION: »Olga is captivating. Bernhard Schlink tells the story in lucid, serene language. He is a master of this warm, pleasant tone, which has a hint of the old-fashioned to it.«

»There is always a very differentiated philosophical edifice of ideas behind lawyer Bernhard Schlink’s novels. Yet he tells a gripping, true-to-life story which startles you with its unforeseen twists, and not only makes you think, but feel too.«

»Everything points towards Olga being a new bestseller which can pick up where the international success of The Reader left off. In other words: not to be missed!«

»Composed with exceptional restraint, using simple, precise words and following a central theme while maintaining the narrative arc in one single breath - Olga is a magnificent piece of literature.«

»In this unadorned fresco, the author of the acclaimed The Reader effortlessly traverses a century once more, and makes the turmoil of history feel almost muted. He also paints a beautiful portrait of a woman, which is full of tenderness and melancholy.«

»Just like the stubborn Ferdinand, we know we won't forget Olga, a woman who goes out for secret nocturnal walks, who dreams of Dante's Divine Comedy, votes for the SPD, blames Bismarck for Germany's political extremes, and knows all the cemeteries in the city.«

»It is simultaneously full of substance, captivating, informative, between a thriller and a historical novel. Very sensitive, also subtle, gripping from beginning to end. A coup that will last.«

»A wonderful portrait of a fighter by the author of The Reader.«

»With this novel the author of the bestseller The Reader recognises all the women who were constrained by their times and could have done great things.«

»The plot advances quickly, you are caught up by a fact, a year, a decision without even being aware of it.«

»Olga, Mother Courage«

»Bernard Schlink, maybe one of the best German writers, possibly even the best, creates an immaculate novel against the backdrop of German history with a rare intelligence and mastery.«

»The third part of the novel – letters Olga writes to Herbert after he’s set out for the Arctic – is the most beautiful. Here, the camera finally zooms in and we learn of Olga’s feelings, how she’s torn between hope and fear, love and anger at her lover, who has left her for a madcap expedition.«

 »The sentences are typical Schlink: succinct, unadorned, emotional.« 

»You should read this novel if you appreciate the power of history. How do we remember each other? As individuals, or as parts of a larger whole?«

»Spanning from the late 19th Century to the turn of the 21st, Olga is a fascinating and unforgettable tale that explores a huge variety of important themes.«

»It makes for a compelling reading experience.«

»Fast-paced and ambitious, this is a work that makes you appreciate the power of history.«

»And in Schlink’s macro look at Germany’s past, it’s the small acts – of kindness and humility – that linger.«


 

»Schlink’s lucid, no-frills prose lends his novel immediacy, and at times potency, and gives us a character to root for.«

»You should read this novel if you appreciate the power of history. How do we remember each other? As individuals, or as parts of a larger whole?«

»This is not a straightforward elegy — and throughout the book, death is not an absolute end. Instead, Schlink frames the novel as a search for meaning, which dances in Olga between a multitude of timeframes and territories.«

»One of Bernhard Schlink's secrets stems from his art of telling stories by interweaving the standpoints of different generations in the very same life story. Olga is another very well-done example of that.«

»A cleverly-constructed tale of cross-class romance... Olga's story draws us into a present-day reckoning with Germany's past.«

»Readers who love rich character studies will want to pick this up.«

»Two world wars and the passage of more than a century do not overshadow Schlink’s (The Woman on the Stairs, 2017) story of lovers who never fully belong to each other, just as they never fully belonged to the world.«

»Schlink’s storytelling conjures a nation in flux, from two blood-soaked wars through a split and reunification, a century bookended by the life of an intrepid woman.«

»Olga is a poignant portrait of a woman out of step with her time.«

»Olga’s fortunes in the aftermath of his disappearance are relayed in Charlotte Collins’s graceful translation from the German, which shifts midway through to the first-person testimony of a man the elderly Olga has known since he was a sickly boy, entertained by her tales of Herbert’s exploits.«