Friedrich Durrenmatt: Selected Writings, Volume I, Plays

Author:   Friedrich Durrenmatt ,  Joel Agee ,  Kenneth J. Northcott ,  Theodore Ziolkowski
Publisher:   The University of Chicago Press
ISBN:  

9780226174266


Pages:   328
Publication Date:   27 June 2023
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   Out of stock   Availability explained
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.

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Friedrich Durrenmatt: Selected Writings, Volume I, Plays


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Overview

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. With these long-awaited translations of his plays, fictions, and essays, Dürrenmatt becomes available again in all his brilliance to the English-speaking world. Dürrenmatt’s concerns are timeless, but they are also the product of his Swiss vantage during the cold war: his key plays, gathered in the first volume of Selected Writings, explore such themes as guilt by passivity, the refusal of responsibility, greed and political decay, and the tension between justice and freedom. In The Visit, for instance, an old lady who becomes the wealthiest person in the world returns to the village that cast her out as a young woman and offers riches to the town in exchange for the life of the man, now its mayor, who once disgraced her. Joel Agee’s crystalline translation gives a fresh lease to this play, as well as four others: The Physicists, Romulus the Great, Hercules and the Augean Stables, and The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi. 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.

Full Product Details

Author:   Friedrich Durrenmatt ,  Joel Agee ,  Kenneth J. Northcott ,  Theodore Ziolkowski
Publisher:   The University of Chicago Press
Imprint:   University of Chicago Press
Dimensions:   Width: 1.60cm , Height: 0.30cm , Length: 2.30cm
Weight:   0.652kg
ISBN:  

9780226174266


ISBN 10:   0226174263
Pages:   328
Publication Date:   27 June 2023
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock   Availability explained
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.

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Reviews

[Drrenmatt] was one of the giants of this, or any, century. As more of his vast bodu of work . . . becomes available in more and better translations, the Anglo-American world will share in the grief of losing him--even while taking comfort in the joy of discovering him. -- John Simon


"""[D�rrenmatt] was one of the giants of this, or any, century. As more of his vast bodu of work . . . becomes available in more and better translations, the Anglo-American world will share in the grief of losing him--even while taking comfort in the joy of discovering him.""--John Simon"


[Drrenmatt] was one of the giants of this, or any, century. As more of his vast bodu of work . . . becomes available in more and better translations, the Anglo-American world will share in the grief of losing him--even while taking comfort in the joy of discovering him. -- John Simon [Durrenmatt] was one of the giants of this, o--John Simon [Durrenmatt] was one of the giants of this, or any, century. As more of his vast bodu of work . . . becomes available in more and better translations, the Anglo-American world will share in the grief of losing him--even while taking comfort in the joy of discovering him. --John Simon


Author Information

Friedrich D�rrenmatt was born in 1921 in the village of Konolfingen, near Berne, Switzerland, and was the son of a Protestant minister. During World War II he studied philosophy and literature at the Universities of Berne and Zurich. He wrote prolifically and traveled widely in the 1950s, '60s, and '70s, taking particular interest in human rights and the preservation of Israel. Joel Agee has translated numerous German authors into English, including Heinrich von Kleist, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Elias Canetti. He is the author of two memoirs, Twelve Years: An American Boyhood in East Germany and In the House of My Fear. Kenneth J. Northcott (1922-2019) was professor emeritus of German at the University of Chicago. He translated a number of books for the University of Chicago Press.

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