"Wenn es Heimat gibt, dann liegt sie in der Sprache": Frank Schulz’s Hagener Trilogie (1991–2006)

Frank Schulz's Hagener Trilogie (1991-2006) was celebrated as a masterpiece in the German-speaking feuilletons. Surprisingly, nothing can be found on Schulz's multi-layered meditation on Heimat and Sehnsucht in academic discussions of contemporary German literature. Playing with the conventions of the Heimatroman, Schulz gives the genre a postmodern spin by transplanting the concept of Heimat from the realm of geography into the sphere of speech sounds: the metaphysical homelessness and identity crisis of the main protagonist is not just negotiated thematically, but also expressed by his lack of a stable linguistic identity, by his increasingly frantic vacillation between different sociolects, idiolects, and dialects.