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Bernhard Schlink | Die Heimkehr | English Title: The Homecoming<br>Novel, 384 Pages

Novel, Hardcover
384 Pages
Published in March 2006

ISBN 978-3-257-06510-7
€ (D) 19.90 / (A) 20.50
sFr 28.90*
* recommended retail price

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Bernhard Schlink
Die Heimkehr

English Title: The Homecoming

As a child, Peter Debauer, the narrator of the novel, spends his holidays at his grandparents’ house in Switzerland. In the evening, he sits with them at the table and reads, while they edit and correct the magazine novels with which they earn their money. Since paper is very expensive in the 1950s, his grandparents let him use the back of the edited manuscripts to scribble on, but tell him never to turn them over and read the text. One day, he simply cannot resist and turns the page - and reads about the odyssey of a German soldier to Siberia, his eventual return and subsequent search for his wife. Finally the soldier locates the city and the house in which she lives, but when his wife opens the door, another man is standing beside her, while she is holding his child on her arm. Then the soldier... But Peter Debauer cannot find out what happens next. He has already thrown away the original manuscripts – on which he has scribbled and drawn – which contained the end of the novel. Years later he recalls the story and wants to know how it ends. The search for the end of the story turns into the search for its author – a man who has repeatedly been able to hide his tracks, who has assumed a number of different identities, pursued various careers and who has developed a rather peculiar relationship to the horrors of the twentieth century. During his search, Peter Debauer encounters himself. In his attempt to discover the end of the soldier’s story, he embarks on his own odyssey: the search for his origins and his return, and for the woman he loves. Published in: France (Gallimard) Spain (Anagrama, Ed. 62 and Galaxia) Italy (Garzanti) Netherlands (Cossee) Norway (Gyldendal Norsk) Finland (Söderström) Portugal (Asa) Czech Republic (Prostor) Poland (Bertelsmann Media) Greece (Kritiki) Turkey (Dogan) Israel (Kinneret-Zmora-Dvir) Latvia (AGB) Lithuania (Versus Aureus) Slovakia (Slovart) Slovenia (Cankarjeva Zalozba) Romania (Polirom) Macedonia (Ili-Ili) Croatia (Algoritam) Hungary (Ulpius-Haz) Serbia (Plato) Russia (Azbooka) Japan (Shinchosha) China (Shanghai 99 Reader's Culture) Taiwan (Crown) Brazil (Record) Korea (Sigongsa)

QuotesShow all

»›Homecoming‹ is a powerful meditation on justice, history and the nature of evil. Schlink has written another lean, meticulously structured, disquieting thought-provoker.«Los Angeles Times

»Beguiling ... Despite its intricate, meze-like progression, ›Homecoming‹ has surprising narrative thrust.«The Economist

»Sensitive and disturbing ... The reader’s mind opens to the story like a plant unfurling its leaves to the sun.«The New York Times Book Review

»Schlink has put together a clever package and skilfully guides the reader through modern German history.«The Sunday Telegraph

»Once again Schlink has brought together the two parts of his professional life: ethicist and crime writer. ›The Homecoming‹ is intellectually challenging, but pacily written ... Schlink lures us into ethical dark corners in the simplest of prose - a writing style that has its critics. For both these reasons he reminds me of Orwell ... I know of no other writer who engages with the struggle between the individual and the political world as deftly - and poetically - as Bernhard Schlink.«The Herald

»It is effectively a glorious return of an old theme and its variations: the relation between a son and an absent father.«Le Monde

»Long awaited, truly extraordinary: Bernhard Schlink’s new novel ›The Homecoming‹ is at least as good as his bestseller ›The Reader‹... There is everything in it that made Schlink so successful before: an intelligent analysis of evil, a love story, and everything told in a beautiful prose that is probably unique in contemporary German literature.«Brigitte

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