Dürrenmatt, Friedrich

Dürrenmatt, Friedrich (frē`drĭkh dür`ənmät), 1921–90, Swiss playwright and novelist. Dürrenmatt's writings depict a world both comic and grotesque. As a young German-speaking playwright in Switzerland, he was witness to the rise of fascism in neighboring countries but insulated from its direct impact. His plays include the tragic farce Der Besuch der alten Dame (1956, tr. The Visit, 1958), Romulus der Grosse (1949; adapted by Gore Vidal as Romulus, 1962), and the comedy Die Physiker (1962, tr. 1964). His sense of irony is also evident in his novels, which include the detective mystery Der Richter und sein Henker (1952, tr. The Judge and His Hangman, 1954). A volume of his stories, Der Sturz [the collapse] appeared in 1971.

Bibliography

See studies by M. B. Peppard (1969) and A. Arnold (1969, tr. 1972).

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Dürrenmatt, Friedrich

(born Jan. 5, 1921, Konolfingen, near Bern, Switz.—died Dec. 14, 1990, Neuchâtel) Swiss playwright. His plays, showing the influence of Bertolt Brecht as well as the Theatre of the Absurd, were central to the post-1945 revival of the German theatre. In his first three plays, All as It Is Written (1947), The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi (1952), and An Angel Comes to Babylon (1953), he took comic liberties with historical facts to present parables about modern life. His play The Visit (1956) and the modern morality play The Physicists (1962) earned him international acclaim. After 1970 he wrote adaptations, detective novels, radio plays, and essays. His works have been translated into more than 50 languages.

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Dürrenmatt, Friedrich 

Born Jan. 5, 1921, in Konolfingen, the canton of Bern. Swiss writer, who writes in German. Son of a pastor. Studied philosophy in Zürich and Bern.

Dürrenmatt’s first plays were It Is Written (1947), The Blind Man (1948), and Romulus the Great (1949). He won worldwide fame with the plays The Visit (1956; Russian translation, 1958), The Physicists (1962), and The Anabaptists (1967). Outstanding among his prose works are the collection of stories The City (1952), the novella The Breakdown (1956; Russian translation, 1961), and the novels The Judge and His Executioner (1950-51; Russian translation, 1966) and The Promise (1958; Russian translation, 1966). Using parody and the grotesque to expose the vices of the bourgeois world, Dürrenmatt calls on every person to accept personal moral responsibility. The plays The Physicists and The Visit were staged in Moscow in 1963, 1965, and 1966 and in Leningrad in 1962.

WORKS

Gesammelte Hörspiele. Zürich, 1961.
In Russian translation:
Komedii. Moscow, 1969.
“Grek ishchet grechanku.” Novyi mir, 1966, no. 9.
“Operatsiia ‘Vega.’” In Biblioteka sovremennoi fantastiki, vol. 5. Moscow, 1966.
“Meteor.” Inostrannaia literatura, 1967, no. 2.

REFERENCES

Pavlova, N. S. F. Diurrenmatt. Moscow, 1967.
Brock-Sulzer, E. Dürrenmatt in unserer Zeit. Basel [1968].
Hansel, J. Friedrich Dürrenmatt-Bibliographie. Bad Homburg [1968].

G. L. EGOROVA