In light of this (not so) new century, there is good reason to consider the rise of a »realism of globalization«. As the former leading agent of modelling alternative worlds, the tradition of the realistic novel has long lost ground against the dominance of new, »visual novels« (i.e. The Wire) with their own approach towards realistic aesthetics. What is the role that literature can play in this transformative, mediatic field? Which originality can it claim? The objective of this (two part) study is to respond to these concerns by example. The case is made for two novels, Alle Tage (2004) and Der einzige Mann auf dem Kontinent (2009), by the German-Hungarian writer Terézia Mora, which might function as a showcase for the ways in which contemporary fiction responds to and contributes in shaping the discourse of globalization. The first part of this study is presented hereby.