Schlink studied law at the University of Heidelberg and at the Free University of Berlin. He has been a law professor at the University of Bonn and Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main before he started in 1992 at Humboldt University of Berlin. His career as a writer began with several detective novels with a main character named Selb—a play on the German word for "self"— (the first, Self's Punishment, co-written with Walter Popp being available in the UK). One of these, Die gordische Schleife, won the Glauser Prize in 1989. In 1995 he published The Reader (Der Vorleser), a novel about a teenager who has an affair with a woman in her thirties who suddenly vanishes but whom he meets again as a law student when visiting a trial about war crimes. The book became a bestseller both in Germany and the United States and was translated into 39 languages. It was the first German book to reach the number one position in the New York Times bestseller list. In 1997 it won the Hans Fallada Prize, a German literary award, and the Prix Laure Bataillon for works translated into French. In 1999 it was awarded the "WELT - Literaturpreis" of the newspaper Die Welt. In 2000, Schlink published a collection of short fiction called Flights of Love. A January 2008 literary tour, including an appearance in San Francisco for City Arts & Lectures, was cancelled due to Schlink's recovery from minor surgery.

In 2008 Stephen Daldry directed a film adaptation of The Reader.

Schlink currently divides his time between New York and Berlin.

Literary Works in German

• 1962 Der Andere
• 1987 Selbs Justiz (Self's Punishment; with Walter Popp)
• 1988 Die gordische Schleife (The Gordian Knot), Zurich: Diogenes
• 1992 Selbs Betrug, Zurich: Diogenes
• 1995 Der Vorleser (The Reader), Zurich: Diogenes
• 2000 Liebesfluchten (Flights of Love), Zurich: Diogenes
• 2001 Selbs Mord (Self's Murder), Zurich: Diogenes
• 2006 Die Heimkehr (Homecoming: A Novel), Zurich: Diogenes
• 2008 Das Wochenende (The Weekend: A Novel), Zurich: Diogenes
• 2010 Sommerlügen - Geschichten (~ Summer Lies: Stories), Zurich: Diogenes

Other Works in German

• 1976 Abwägung im Verfassungsrecht, Berlin: Duncker und Humblot
• 1980 Rechtlicher Wandel durch richterliche Entscheidung: Beitraege zu einer Entscheidungstheorie der richterlichen Innovation, co-edited with Jan Harenburg and Adalbert Podlech, Darmstadt: Toeche-Mittler
• 1982 Die Amtshilfe: ein Beitrag zu einer Lehre von der Gewaltenteilung in der Verwaltung, Berlin : Duncker & Humblot
• 1985 Grundrechte, Staatsrecht II, co-authored with Bodo Pieroth, Heidelberg: C.F. Müller
• 2002 Polizei- und Ordnungsrecht, co-authored with Bodo Pieroth and Michael Kniesel, Munich: Beck
• 2005 Vergewisserungen: über Politik, Recht, Schreiben und Glauben, Zurich: Diogenes

Titles in English

• 1997 The Reader, translated by Carol Brown Janeway, New York: Pantheon Books
• 2001 Flights of Love: Stories, translated by John E. Woods, New York: Pantheon Books
• 2005 Self’s Punishment, Bernhard Schlink and Walter Popp, translated by Rebecca Morrison, New York: Vintage Books
• 2007 Self’s Deception, translated by Peter Constantine, New York: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
• 2007 Homecoming translated by Michael Henry Heim, New York: Pantheon Books
• 2009 Self's Murder, Weidenfeld & Nicolson
• 2009 Guilt about the Past, University of Queensland Press, 9 January 2009
• 2010 The Weekend: A Novel, translated by Shaun Whiteside - October 2010