Max Frisch Boeken

The screenplay "Zurich Transit" was developed from an episode in the novel Gantenbein, published in 1964: 'A story for Camilla: of a man who decides several times to change his life but, of course, never succeeds ...' Yet one day he, Theo Ehrismann, returns from a trip abroad and reads in the paper his own obituary. He arrives just on time for his own funeral and observes the attending mourners, and yet he is not able to reveal himself to them, especially not to his wife: 'How does one say that he is alive?' Max Frisch counters the traditional dramaturgy based on causality with a dramaturgy of coincidence. 'Life,' Max Frisch said in 1965, 'is the sum of events that happen by chance, and it always could as well have turned out differently; there is not a single action or omission that does not allow for variables in the future.'

Together Max Frisch and Friedrich Dürrenmatt are not only two of the most esteemed Swiss writers of the twentieth century, but arguably two of the most important European writers since World War II. The remarkable letters gathered here document their unique, unlikely, and extraordinary friendship. This collection of correspondence offers a picture of two temperaments that could not have been more different. As their letters show, at first their friendship was tentative, both critical and respectful, as one might imagine of two contemporary literary giants. Then, under the pressure of their increasing fame, Frisch and Dürrenmatt's letters became more teasing in spirit and began to carry a noted undertone of irony. Finally, perhaps inevitably, the friendship became seriously endangered and failed. Available in English for the first time, this collection includes an introduction by Peter Rüedi that places the letters within the context of the authors' lives and works, as well as the larger historical events of the time. Detailed notes, a chronology, photographs, and facsimiles of the original letters complete the book, which will be engaging reading for admirers of Frisch and Dürrenmatt as well as fans of modern German writing in general.

»Halten Sie sich für einen guten Freund? Sind Sie sich selber ein Freund?« Zwischen diesen beiden Fragestellungen liegen 23 Fragen zum Thema Freundschaft. Max Frischs berühmte Fragebogen entstammen dem Tagebuch 1966-1971 , und jeder dieser zehn Fragebogen kreist ein Thema ein: Es geht um Ehe, Frauen, Humor, Geld, Freundschaft, Vatersein, Heimat, Eigentum und nichts weniger als die Erhaltung des Menschengeschlechts. Die Antworten bleiben der Fantasie der Leser überlassen – ein unwiderstehlicher Lesegenuss.

A reissue of a comic and tragic play that asks just how much of our life we could--or would--change if we got another chance. In this play by Swiss playwright and novelist Max Frisch, a middle-aged behavioral researcher Kürmann is given the opportunity to start his life over at any point he chooses and change his decisions and actions in matters both serious and mundane--He could save his marriage, become politically active, take better care of his health, or even change the color of his living room furniture. Despite his intention to apply the wisdom he has acquired with age, Kürmann finds himself inexorably trapped in the same decisions. Ultimately proving fatal, Kürmann's life game interrogates how much of our own path is shaped by seemingly random factors and how much is in fact predetermined by our own limited, conditioned selves. The play's central idea--that our lives are nothing but a self-conscious play with imaginary identities--is brilliantly captured in Biography's dramaturgical form, setting up a theatre rehearsal as the metaphor for the endless possibilities and variables of the game of life. Frisch's own revised, dramatically heightened version of his play celebrates not only the theatre as a form of self-expression but also the human condition in all its potential and limitations as it showcases both comic and tragic outcomes that define all our lives.

'New York . . . I HATE IT. I LOVE IT. I DON'T KNOW' This could serve as a motto to large parts of Drafts for a Third Sketchbook, much of which focuses on America, where Frisch had an apartment, as well as his house in rural Switzerland. He wrote three Sketchbooks, of which the third was left unpublished at his death in 1991, that record his reactions to events of the time and people he encountered in his daily life. Despite the German title Tagebuch, they are not diaries in the formal sense, though they do progress chronologically but mostly without dates and only contain the pieces Frisch felt were significant. These 'sketches', ranging from a couple of sentences to several pages, are not casual jottings but carefully crafted pieces. Central to them is his reaction to the America of the Reagan years and the threat of nuclear war but another important theme is his own sense of growing old and the prospect of dying; this is particularly movingly portrayed in the decline and death from cancer of his close friend, Peter Noll. Max Frisch (1911-91) was one of the giants of twentieth-century literature, achieving fame as a novelist, playwright, diarist and essayist. He received the Georg Büchner prize in 1958 and the Neustadt Literature prize in 1986. For many years a lecturer in German with a special interest in Austrian literature, Mike Mitchell has worked as a literary translator since 1995. Publisher's note.

A playfully postmodern novel exploring questions of identify from a major Swiss writer. A man walks out of a bar and is later found dead at the wheel of his car. On the basis of a few overheard remarks and his own observations, the narrator of this novel imagines the story of this stranger, or rather two alternative stories based on two identities the narrator has invented for him, one under the name of Enderlin, the other under the name Gantenbein.

The daily journal of a giant of German literature, touching subjects ranging from the everyday life to the political and social conditions in East Germany as viewed from West Berlin. Max Frisch (1911-91) was a giant of twentieth-century German literature. When Frisch moved into a new apartment in Berlin's Sarrazinstrasse, he began keeping a journal, which he came to call the Berlin Journal. A few years later, he emphasized in an interview that this was by no means a "scribbling book," but rather a book "fully composed." The journal is one of the great treasures of Frisch's literary estate, but the author imposed a retention period of twenty years from the date of his death because of the "private things" he noted in it. From the Berlin Journal now marks the first publication of excerpts from Frisch's journal. Here, the unmistakable Frisch is back, full of doubt, with no illusions, and with a playfully sharp eye for the world. From the Berlin Journal pulls from the years 1946-49 and 1966-71. Observations about the writer's everyday life stand alongside narrative and essayistic texts, as well as finely-drawn portraits of colleagues like Günter Grass, Uwe Johnson, Wolf Biermann, and Christa Wolf, among others. Its foremost quality, though, is the extraordinary acuity with which Frisch observed political and social conditions in East Germany while living in West Berlin.