In 2002 Suhrkamp published Martin Walser’s novel Tod eines Kritikers, Death of a Critic. The critic who is supposedly murdered in the novel was modeled on Marcel Reich-Ranicki of the FAZ. Frank Schirrmacher, an editor of the FAZ, refused to print the novel in advance in his paper. He called it an Exekution, an execution, and a Mordfantasie, a murder fantasy. He wrote that its repertoire of antisemitic clichés was, unfortunately, impossible to overlook. The debate was no longer only about a book. It was about Walser and Reich-Ranicki themselves.