The Weekend - Tapa dura

asks to be seen as a sequel to The Reader, Schlink's best-know book; seems, even, to be a mirror image of it. As before, Schlink expertly marries the personal and the political, and the weight of generalised historical processes is made manifest in the lives of individuals... seeded with intense flashes of emotion. (DAILY TELEGRAPH - 16.10.10)

Like his earlier, celebrated book, The Reader, Bernhard Schlink's latest novel deals with Germany's collective guilt and with individual responsibility. (THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH - 24.10.10)

Schlink deals deftly with his specialist subject of German guilt (WATERSTONES BOOKS QUARTERLY - October 2020)

Baader-Meinhof terrorism plays a role in Bernhard Schlink's novel, The Weekend as friends gather at a country house. (VOGUE -October 2010)

Schlink expertly anatomises the successes and failures, ideals and tactics of the Seventies terrorists. (MICHAEL ARDITTI THE DAILY MAIL - 25.09.10)

a succinct, and dramatic tale... fascinating insight into Germany's ongoing examination of its troubled past. (THE DAILY EXPRESS - 8.10.2010)

extraordinary depth and worldwide critical acclaim (THE GUARDIAN - 23.10.2010)

The past looms large in the novels of Bernhard Schlink. It threatens to overwhelm, to paralyse. .. History is a monster which can (at best) be understood, it can't be vanquished. Like, The Reader, The Weekend is a short novel with a broad vision, tender, heart-searching, full of ideas. (THE SCOTSMAN - 13.11.10)

Old friends and lovers reunite for a weekend in a secluded country home after spending decades apart. They plumb their memories of each other and pass quiet judgments on the life decisions each has made since their youth. This isn't, however, just any old reunion, and their conversations of the old days aren't typical reminiscences. After 24 years, Joerg - a convicted murderer and terrorist, is released from prison on a pardon. A former member of the Red Army Faction (or Baader-Meinhof Group), the announcement of Joerg's release is sure to send shock waves throughout Germany. But before this happens, his group of friends - most of whom were RAF sympathizers - gather for his first weekend of freedom. They are invited by Christiane, Joerg's devoted sister, whose suffocating concern for her brother is matched only by the unrelenting pull of Marcko, a dangerously passionate young man intent on using Joerg to continue the cause.