Together Max Frisch and Friedrich Durrenmatt 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...
Together Max Frisch and Friedrich Durrenmatt are not only two of the most esteemed Swiss writers of the twentieth century, but arguably two of the ...
As the current global recession stubbornly persists and financial experts around the world struggle to prevent further financial collapse, everyone has a theory about how to save the economy. But perhaps no idea that has been proffered is as radical or as unique as what Hugo Loetscher imagines in his novel "Noah." In this book, first published in German in 1967, the eponymous Old Testament hero fuels his local economy with a prescient plan to build the Ark.Though no one around him seriously believes in the coming flood, everyone is more than willing to do business with him: The people of...
As the current global recession stubbornly persists and financial experts around the world struggle to prevent further financial collapse, everyone ha...
The narrator in Jean-Luc Benoziglio s"Privy Portrait"has fallen on hard times. His wife and young daughter have abandoned him, he has no work or prospects, he s blind in one eye, and he must move into a horribly tiny apartment with his only possession: a twenty-five-volume encyclopedia. His neighbors, the Shritzkys, are vulgar, narrow-minded, and racist. And because he has no space for his encyclopedia in his cramped room, he stores it in the communal bathroom, and this becomes a major point of contention with his neighbors. The bathroom is also the only place he can find refuge from the...
The narrator in Jean-Luc Benoziglio s"Privy Portrait"has fallen on hard times. His wife and young daughter have abandoned him, he has no work or prosp...
T., an acclaimed but ageing actor, and Efina, a passionate theatergoer, are engaged in an obsessive love affair that careens from attraction to repulsion. They compulsively write lettersoften to express their intense dislike of one anotherwhich are sent or unsent, answered or unanswered. They meet, they break up, they marry, and they get divorced. They neither can live with nor without one another, and this impossible state of affairs lasts all their lives. In-between, there are other men and many other women, but throughout, the magic of the theater and the art of make-believe endure....
T., an acclaimed but ageing actor, and Efina, a passionate theatergoer, are engaged in an obsessive love affair that careens from attraction to repuls...
Rainer Brambach, one of the most widely appreciated Swiss poets in the 1950s and '60s, was notorious for walking to the beat of his own drum, denying convention and standing his ground against popular styles and trends. He grew up in Basel and left school at the age of fourteen to become a manual laborer. He spent much of World War II in prison and in labor camps, an experience which greatly influenced his writing. After the war, Brambach began to make his name as a poet. Recognition and awards notwithstanding, Brambach remained an outsider in the literary world and lived for many years in...
Rainer Brambach, one of the most widely appreciated Swiss poets in the 1950s and '60s, was notorious for walking to the beat of his own drum, denying ...
In the wildly entertaining novel"The Blue Soda Siphon," the narrator unexpectedly finds himself back in the world of his childhood: Switzerland in the 1940s. He returns to his childhood home to find his parents frantic because their son is missing. Then, in another switch, the young boy that he was back then turns up in the present of the early 1990s, during the Gulf War, where he meets himself as an older man, and meets his adult self s young daughter. These head-scratching, hilarious time shifts happen when both the adult narrator and his childhood self go to the cinema and see films, the...
In the wildly entertaining novel"The Blue Soda Siphon," the narrator unexpectedly finds himself back in the world of his childhood: Switzerland in the...
The day is Friday, May 22, 2032. On this day, the day after his ninety-fourth birthday, a man is sitting in a beautiful garden. It is a paradise where he often played during his childhood, and it is here that he is recording the story of his adventures with Mr. Adamson. In the course of this compelling novel from Swiss author Urs Widmer, this man narrates his unusual story to his granddaughter, Anni. While he recounts his life, he is also waitingwaiting for the arrival of this very Mr. Adamson, whom he has not seen since the age of eight. Even then it was a mysterious encountera glimpse into...
The day is Friday, May 22, 2032. On this day, the day after his ninety-fourth birthday, a man is sitting in a beautiful garden. It is a paradise where...
After several years abroad, a young man returns to his hometown to seek the man he calls master. This master, a brilliant philosopher, had made the young man into a disciple before sending him out into the world to put his teachings into practice. Returning three years later, the disciple finds his master has abandoned his wife and child and moved into a squalid one-room flat, cutting himself off completely from his former life. Disillusioned and reeling from the discovery, the young man spends an entire night listening to his master s bitter denunciation of the ideals they once shared....
After several years abroad, a young man returns to his hometown to seek the man he calls master. This master, a brilliant philosopher, had made the yo...
Kuno, a male nurse in a Swiss retirement home, has a new inmate: his father. In the confines of their new home, the pair does something surprising they finally begin to talk. Kuno had always regarded his father as a boring man without a history or a destiny, until they are thrust together and he learns that his father risked his life in the war. Stunned, Kuno embarks on a journey into his own psyche, taking him to the depths of the Congo. Here, longings awaken and dreams come true rays of light in the darkness, meetings with kings, seductive women, and the songs of the jungle. This alluring...
Kuno, a male nurse in a Swiss retirement home, has a new inmate: his father. In the confines of their new home, the pair does something surprising the...