Max Frisch
Swiss playwright and novelist whose work examined Swiss bourgeois complacency, identity, and self-deception with cool Brechtian intelligence. The Firebugs (Biedermann und die Brandstifter) is a brilliant parable about complicity in catastrophe. His diary novels are equally important.
Works
- StillerMan escapes legal troubles by assuming another identity
- Homo FaberEngineer's obsession with control and technology destroys his life
- I'm Not StillerMan denies his past identity to escape his former life
- GantenbeinAging man reflects on alternate life paths through imagined scenarios
- Man in the HoloceneElderly man isolated by avalanche confronts memory and time
- The FirebugsCitizens passively allow arsonists to burn their town unimpeded
- AndorraJewish boy persecuted in small town community during Nazi era
- Biography: A GameMan rewrites his life repeatedly through imagined alternative histories
- Don Juan or the Love of GeometryDon Juan seduces woman despite passion's opposition to geometry
- Santa CruzTwo couples encounter each other and their past at seaside
- Biedermann and the ArsonistsRespectable citizens allow arsonists to destroy their house
- The Fire RaisersCitizens passively accept arson threat in play about complacency