Late life

Sixty-six-year-old Martin Brehm is happy and satisfied with his life. His much younger wife is a successful painter, he writes newspaper articles, contributes to a film script and tends to his garden in his spare time. And most importantly, she takes care of her six-year-old son David. When he learns that he has only a few months to live, his reality suddenly shatters. He is experiencing a range of previously unrecognized feelings. There are a lot of questions circling around in his head to which there are no right answers. After the initial shock, he focuses on securing the future of his loved ones. But what can he really give them? What kind of legacy will he leave for them and will he not become more of a burden? What to do with the rest of the time? If he is to die resigned to his fate, he must face several surprises and final challenges. He was seventy-six years old, and naturally in recent years he had sometimes thought about death. His profession was law and he was particularly interested in history, the history of law and history in general. He didn't want to die, because that way he wouldn't know, how things will turn out - there will be a war between America and China, who wins the war, what will happen to Europe and to Germany, what will happen to the world in the coming warm climate? He didn't want to live forever, but he would like to continue to exist in some way, to be able to follow history and the following centuries as he had followed the past ones. That was one side of the coin. There was a second one. Death will spare him the sight of dying forests, rising oceans, the return of war, the end of democracy and autocratic rule according to the wishes of the people. And sometimes it happened that he was afraid of death, of the nothingness, the emptiness, the cold. Then he was ashamed. Nothingness is nothingness - why be afraid of it? Audiobook: Bernhard Schlink: AFTERNOON LIFE | Translation by Jana Zoubková | Read by Otakar Brousek Jr. | Directed by Petr Mančal | Sound, editing and mastering by Dominik Budil | Music by Jan Šikl | Filmed in S Pro Alfa Studio | Graphic design adapted from the book by Yvone Baalbaki | Production by S Pro Alfa | Supervision by Alena Brožová | Published by Euromedia Group, a. does - Témbr, in December 2024. The recording is based on a book: DAS SPÄTE LEBEN Copyright © 2023 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zurich | Translation © Jana Zoubková, 2024 | All rights reserved | Vydala Euromedia Group, a. does – Odeon, 2024. Bernhard Schlink (1944) je významný německý právník a slavný prozaik. His 1995 novel The Pre-Reader (no. 1998) has become a literary phenomenon and has been translated into fifty languages. It was also successfully made into a film - directed by Stephen Daldry, starring Kate Winslet (2008). His prose books Escapes from Love (2001), Return (2007), Justice According to Selbo (2009) were published in Czech; with Walter Popp), Weekend (2011) and Summer Lies (2017). In 2019, the groundbreaking novel Olga was published, with which the writer "revised" 20th-century German history. This was followed two years later by the short story collection The Colours of Farewell and in 2022 by the novel Granddaughter. Otakar Brousek Jr. (1957) comes from an acting background, his father Otakar Brousek Sr. was a leading Czech actor, his sister Jaroslava Brousková is also an actress. After graduating from the Prague Conservatory, he worked in the theatre in Kladno from 1978, after 1990 he was engaged in the Prague City Theatres, in the Theatre Na Fidlovačce and since 2012 he has been a member of the acting ensemble of the Theatre at Vinohrady. In addition to the theatre, he also appears in film and television. In 2010, he was nominated for the Thalia Award for his role of Vershinin in The Three Sisters at Divadlo Na Fidlovačce. He was nominated for the Czech Lion Film Award in 2022 for his role as the director in OKUPACE (2021). He is a sought-after dubber and audiobook performer.