Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Friedrich Dürrenmatt: Selected Writings, Volume 2, Fictions
    Friedrich Dürrenmatt: Selected Writings, Volume 2, Fictions
    Friedrich Dürrenmatt: Selected Writings, Volume 2, Fictions
    Ebook601 pages10 hours

    Friedrich Dürrenmatt: Selected Writings, Volume 2, Fictions

    By Friedrich Durrenmatt, Joel Agee and Theodore Ziolkowski

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    These translations of Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s fiction introduce the writer to a new generation of readers.

    The Swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–90) was one of the most important literary figures of the second half of the twentieth century. During the years of the Cold War, arguably only Beckett, Camus, Sartre, and Brecht rivaled him as a presence in European letters. Yet outside Europe, this prolific author is primarily known for only one work, The Visit. 

    This second volume of Selected Writings reveals a writer who may stand as Kafka’s greatest heir. Dürrenmatt’s novellas and short stories are searing, tragicomic explorations of the ironies of justice and the corruptibility of institutions. Apart from The Pledge, a requiem to the detective story that was made into a film starring Jack Nicholson, none of the works in this volume are available elsewhere in English. Among the most evocative fiction included here are two novellas: The Assignment and Traps. The Assignment tells the story of a woman filmmaker investigating a mysterious murder in an unnamed Arab country and has been hailed by Sven Birkerts as “a parable of hell for an age consumed by images.” Traps, meanwhile, is a chilling comic novella about a traveling salesman who agrees to play the role of the defendant in a mock trial among dinner companions—and then pays the ultimate penalty.

    Dürrenmatt has long been considered a great writer—but one unfairly neglected in the modern world of letters. With these elegantly conceived and expertly translated volumes, a new generation of readers will rediscover his greatest works.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
    Release dateOct 5, 2006
    ISBN9780226531182
    Friedrich Dürrenmatt: Selected Writings, Volume 2, Fictions
    Author

    Friedrich Durrenmatt

    Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921-1990) was a Swiss author and dramatist, most famous for his plays The Visit and The Physicists, which earned him a reputation as one of the greatest playwrights in the German language. He also wrote four highly regarded crime novels - The Pledge, The Judge and His Hangman, Suspicion and The Execution of Justice, all of which will be published by Pushkin Vertigo.

    Read more from Friedrich Durrenmatt

    Related to Friedrich Dürrenmatt

    Related ebooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Writing In The Ruins

      May 16, 2023

      Writing In The Ruins
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Art of Translation No. 6

      Sep 15, 2019

      The Art of Translation No. 6
      30 min read

    • Article

      Michael Wood On…

      Feb 17, 2022

      Recently, I saw the absolutely enthralling new production of Cabaret, which tells the tale of American writer Cliff Bradshaw in 1930s Berlin. This musical chronicles Bradshaw’s relationship with nightclub singer Sally Bowles, the fictional alter ego

      3 min read

    • Article

      Learning to Swim

      Mar 23, 2021

      Learning to Swim
      17 min read

    • Article

      What The Thunder Said

      Sep 14, 2022

      ON Margate Sands./I can connect/ Nothing with nothing.’ Thomas Stearns (T. S.) Eliot crafted these short lines that form a part of his fractured epic The Waste Land in October 1921, as he sat in the inauspicious Nayland Rock Shelter (granted Grade II

      4 min read

    • Article

      Bloomsberries At War PAUL BAILEY Writing In The Dark: Bloomsbury, The Blitz, And Horizon Magazine

      Jul 28, 2021

      Bloomsbury £20 The subtitle of Will Loxley’s first book does not sound especially adventurous or challenging. Haven’t we, both readers and writers, been here before? It’s not entirely fanciful to imagine a bookshop that sells nothing but biographies,

      3 min read

    • Article

      Nazi In The House

      Feb 5, 2023

      Nazi In The House
      2 min read

    • Article

      Blood, Shit, and Sex

      Mar 22, 2019

      Blood, Shit, and Sex
      8 min read

    • Article

      Vonnegut Inc.

      Nov 25, 2020

      Vonnegut Inc.
      8 min read

    • Article

      Behind The Apple

      Nov 24, 2021

      Alex Danchev with Sarah Whitfield (Profile, £30) IN 1946, René Magritte painted his most famous picture, The Son of Man, which shows a bowler-hatted figure in a black overcoat standing ramrod straight in front of a featureless background of sky and

      5 min read

    • Article

      Snaps, Crackles And Pop Art

      Mar 30, 2023

      WRITING ABOUT MUSIC, as the comedian Martin Mull put it, is like dancing about architecture. Novelists who try their hand at the story-about-a-band genre rarely produce their best goods, even when the results are interesting (Don DeLillo’s Great Jone

      6 min read

    • Article

      In Living Memory

      Mar 3, 2020

      In Living Memory
      8 min read

    • Article

      Strand, Levitt, and Parks

      Nov 6, 2020

      Strand, Levitt, and Parks
      10 min read

    • Article

      The Ecstatic Art

      May 1, 2020

      The Ecstatic Art
      11 min read

    • Article

      Twin Totems Of Teutonic Angst

      Jun 29, 2023

      Twin Totems Of Teutonic Angst
      8 min read

    • Article

      How to Read a Squiggle

      Jul 18, 2017

      How to Read a Squiggle
      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Friedrich Dürrenmatt

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Friedrich Dürrenmatt - Friedrich Durrenmatt

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1