BERNHARD SCHLINK was born in 1944 near Bielefeld, Germany, to a German father and a Swiss mother. He grew up in Heidelberg and studied law in Heidelberg and Berlin. Prior to his retirement in 2006 he was a professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law and the Philosophy of Law at Berlin's Humbolt University and a justice of the Constitutional Law Court in Bonn. Schlink has published several works of fiction and nonfiction, most notably his novel The Reader was an international bestseller, winning multiple prestigious international literary prizes, and it has been translated into more than thirty-seven languages. His most recent novel, Homecoming, was published in 2008 to critical acclaim. Bernhard Schlink divides his time between New York and Berlin.