The Swiss writer Friedrich Durrenmatt (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, Durrenmatt becomes
available again in all his brilliance to the English-speaking
world.
Durrenmatt'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,"
Durrenmatt 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.
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