Let’s say an Austrian writer of color had written Der Chinese des Schmerzes; let’s say Loser had been, in fact, a Chinese man, a classics teacher, not particularly identifying as political, prone to violence in the street, disgruntled with Austria, who kills a man for defacing trees with swastikas. I guarantee you every single review of that book would be about: immigration, political violence, hate crime, discrimination. It would be a different book, sure. But the point is that Der Chinese des Schmerzes itself is already a different book from the Across that Handke’s New York Times readers
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