num_pages: 288
description: A sweeping novel of love and passion from author of the international bestseller The Reader about a woman out of step with her time whose life is witness to some of the most tumultuous events of modern age.Abandoned by her parents young Olga is raised by her grandmother in a Prussian village in the early years of the twentieth century. Smart and precocious endearing but uncompromising she fights against ingrained chauvinism to find her place in a world run by lesser men.When Olga falls in love with her neighbor Herbert the son of a local aristocrat her life is irremediably changed. While Herbert indulges his thirst for exploration and adventure Olga is limited by her gender and circumstance. Her love for Herbert goes against all odds and encounters many obstacles but even when they are separated it endures.Unfolding across decadesfrom the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first centuryand across continentsfrom Germany to Africa and the Arctic from the Baltic Sea to the German south-westOlga is an epic romance and a wrenching tale of a womans devotion to a restless man in an age of constant change. Though Olga exists in the shadows of others she pursues life to the fullest and her magnetic presence shinesrevealing a woman complex fascinating and unforgettable. Told in three distinct parts brilliantly shifting from different points of view and narrative formats Bernhard Schlinks magnificent novel is a rich full portrait of a singular woman and her world.Translated from the German by Charlotte Collins 
language: English
title: Olga
publisher: HarperVia