What turns a citizen bad? Acclaimed German author Ingo Schulze discusses literature and moral fracture

Pune: A bilingual scenic reading and discussion with German author Ingo Schulze in Pune transformed a literary evening on Tuesday into a searching examination of morality, memory, and social fracture.Presented by the Goethe-Institut, in collaboration with the department of German at Savitribai Phule Pune University, the session at Max Müller Bhavan on Boat Club Road centred on Schulze's acclaimed novel Die rechtschaffenen Mörder, translated into English as The Righteous Murderers, and unfolded through readings in German and Marathi.
The novel follows a respected antiquarian bookseller in post-reunification Germany who becomes associated with acts of xenophobic violence as his isolation and resentment deepen. The novel probes moral responsibility, complicity, and how righteousness can mask radicalisation.At the heart of the evening was the unsettling question that drives the book: what causes a well-educated and cultured citizen to turn towards extremism? Schulze resisted simple answers. "It is never certain that a person turns bad, and that uncertainty is central to the novel," he explained."In the first half, you follow a man who appears to be moving in a troubling direction. But in the second part, another narrator enters — someone with his own interests and blind spots. Suddenly, contradictions emerge. This ambiguity is essential when addressing radicalisation. Who has the authority to judge when people move towards the far right, and on what moral ground?" he asked.The discussion repeatedly returned to the limits of culture and education as safeguards against intolerance.Schulze observed that books, music, and intellectual life do not automatically prevent resentment from taking root. "As a writer, I do not want to tell readers what to think or which side to choose. What matters to me is how readers respond and how dialogue opens," he said.Students from the Goethe-Institut adopted the perspectives of specific characters from the novel and questioned Schulze accordingly. "In over 30 years of writing, this has never happened. Moments like these force me to rethink my own characters and even myself. One reader asked why I portrayed a figure so harshly, and I had to admit that this character is very close to me. Writing him meant confronting my own ego and my own position in the world," he said.As president of the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung (German Academy for Language and Poetry), Schulze also reflected on how literature is inseparable from the political and historical moment in which it is read. "Literature begins as a story, but it always becomes a conversation about ourselves and the times we live in — shaped by politics, economics, and history. The hardest and most necessary question remains how, in a world marked by destruction and violence, one can choose not to become bitter, yet remain open to others," he said.