The article examines Ingo Schulze’s novel Die rechtschaffenen Mörder
(2020) in the light of the considerations on estrangement expressed by the
author in his speech for the Brecht Prize in 2013. This paper highlights how
the novel is about two types of ‘estrangements’: the first, along Brecht’s lines,
is at the service of committed literature, capable of representing an “alternative
project” for society; the second, on the other hand, is functional to the
author’s self-reflective moment and characteristic of the postmodern novel.
The analysis of the novel argues that ‘estrangement’, from being a tool of
political and social commitment aimed at demystifying power relations, ultimately
becomes a merely formal device that preserves the status quo in the
market of artistic forms produced by the “mass-democratic postmodernity”
(Kondylis) in which Schulze operates, thus counteracting Brecht’s and perhaps
even Schulze’s own initial aim.
