Abstract:

This paper argues that recent dystopian novels in German literature mirror and explore the  possibilities and problems of utopian narration, not only providing a critical counterpart to ideal  societies, but also experimenting with forms and conventions of the original genre. The  perspective proposed is therefore more interested in new ways of telling utopian or dystopian  stories than in their social, political, and technological visions. Three exemplary readings can  illustrate the individual measures that allow contemporary dystopian fiction to comment on  basic conditions of literary utopias. 1) Julie Zeh’s Corpus Delicti introduces an imaginary  character – the so-called „ideal mistress“ – to embody the kind of imaginative criticism that  should be indispensable for texts writing about either perfect or pessimistic alternatives to our  actual world. 2) Dietmar Dath’s Die Abschaffung der Arten deals with a paradox: presenting  multiple settings even though ‚utopia‘, by definition of that term, does not exist any place but  nowhere. 3) With Ich werde hier sein im Sonnenschein und im Schatten Christian Kracht  focuses on history, specifically the need for a historical position in order to judge in present  times whether the future might turn out better or worse. 

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