Friedrich Dürrenmatt: Selected Writings, Volume 2, Fictions - Softcover

Dürrenmatt, Friedrich

Softcover

ISBN 10: 022683669X ISBN 13: 9780226836690

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2024

Synopsis

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. The most well-known work included here is The Pledge, a requiem to the detective story that was made into a film starring Jack Nicholson. The evocative novellas The Assignment tells the story of a woman filmmaker investigating a mysterious murder in an unnamed Arab country; it has been hailed by Sven Birkerts as “a parable of hell for an age consumed by images.” The novella 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.

About this title

About the Authors

Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990) was born in the village of Konolfingen, near Berne, Switzerland. He wrote prolifically during the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, taking particular interest in human rights and the preservation of Israel. He is the author of numerous books published by the University of Chicago Press, including The Pledge.


Joel Agee has translated numerous German authors into English, including Heinrich von Kleist, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Elias Canetti. In 2005 he received the Modern Language Association’s Lois Roth Award for his translation of Hans Erich Nossack’s The End: Hamburg 1943. He is the author of two memoirs: Twelve Years: An American Boyhood in East Germany and In the House of My Fear. 

Theodore Ziolkowski (1932–2020) was the Class of 1900 Professor Emeritus of German and Comparative Literature at Princeton University. He is the author of many books, including The Mirror of Justice: Literary Reflections of Legal Crises. 

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 022683669X
• ISBN 13: 9780226836690
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 389
• Editor: Ziolkowski Theodore