The Righteous Murderers

  • Shortlisted for the Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair
  • More than 44,000 copies sold
  • Sample translation available

"This is not reunification; this is world literature." - Die Welt on Neue Leben

What turns an upstanding bibliophile into a reactionary . . . or a revolutionary? A disturbing tale about all of us.

Norbert Paulini is a highly respected antiquarian books dealer in Dresden whose shop attracts booklovers searching for treasures and likeminded people. As times change and customers grow rare, he continues to defend his position. But Paulini is suddenly transformed into an irascible dogmatist and accused of taking part in xenophobic riots.

This brilliant piece of sleight of hand turns the story on its head. Is Paulini a reactionary or a revolutionary, a tragic figure or a murderer? Ingo Schulze pulls the rug out from under us in virtuoso fashion. How can a reader and booklover become a right-wing criminal? This is storytelling as its most ingenious and disconcerting.

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F (Fayard) | I (Feltrinelli) | IRN (Borj Books) | HR (Disput) | HU (Prae Publishing) | IND (DC Books), (Rohan Prakashan) | RO (Lebada Naegra) | RUS (Ad Marginem) | TN (arabic) (Institut de Traduction de Tunis)

  • Publisher: FISCHER Taschenbuch
  • Release: 31.08.2022
  • ISBN: 978-3-596-52317-7
  • 352 Pages
  • Author: Ingo Schulze
Buchcover von The Righteous Murderers: Roman
Ingo Schulze The Righteous Murderers
Portrait von Ingo Schulze
© Andreas Labes
Ingo Schulze

Ingo Schulze was born in Dresden in 1962 and lives in Berlin. His books, including Simple Stories , New Lives , Adam and Evelyn , Peter Holtz and The Righteous Murderers , have been hugely successful, are set on school reading lists, have been made into films and translated into 32 languages. Ingo Schulze has received numerous national and international awards for his work. He has been President of the German Academy for Language and Literature since 2023.