A Companion to the Works of Max Frisch

Book excerpt: A comprehensive advanced introduction to and scholarly commentary on the work of the Swiss writer Max Frisch, one of the leading German-language dramatists and novelists of the late twentieth century. One of the most influential German-language writers of the late twentieth century, Max Frisch (1911-1991) not only has canonical status in Europe, but has also been well received in the English-speaking world. English translationsof his works are available in multiple recent editions. Frisch was a recipient of both the Büchner Award (1958), and the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (1976); his body of work explores questions of identity, alienation, and ethics in modern society. He is best known for the plays Andorra (1961), a seminal drama that examines indifference and mass psychology in the context of the Shoah and continues to be produced by theaters around the world, and Biedermann und die Brandstifter (1958), another worldwide success and one of the most frequently used texts in advanced undergraduate German courses in the United States, as well as for his novels Stiller (1954), Homo Faber (1957), and Mein Name sei Gantenbein (1964). Yet Frisch has only recently begun to receive the sustained scholarly attention he deserves: neither a comprehensive introductory volume to nor a collaborative handbook on the works of Frisch is available in English, a situation that this volume redresses. Contributors: Régine Battiston, Klaus van den Berg, Olaf Berwald, Amanda Charitina Boyd, Céline Letawe, Walter Obschlager, John D. Pizer, Beatrice Sandberg, Caroline Schaumann, Frank Schaumann, Walter Schmitz, Margit Unser, Daniel de Vin, Ruth Vogel-Klein, Paul A. Youngman. Olaf Berwald is Professor of German and Chair of the Departmentof Foreign Languages at Kennesaw State University.