Frisch, Max

Frisch, Max, 1911–91, Swiss writer. He obtained a diploma in architecture in 1941, and his designs included the Zürich Recreation Park. After 1955 he became recognized as one of Europe's major literary voices. In the novels Stiller (1954, tr. I'm Not Stiller, 1958), Homo faber (1957, tr. 1959), and Mein Name sei Gantenbein (1964, tr. A Wilderness of Mirrors, 1965), Frisch was essentially concerned with the human search for personal identity. His best-known plays are Biedermann und die Brandstifter (1953, tr. The Firebugs, 1963), and Andorra (1961, tr. 1962), a study of mass psychology.

Bibliography

See his autobiographical Montauk (tr. 1976), his Sketchbooks (1974, 1977); studies by M. Butler (1983) and W. Koepke (1990); biographies by U. W. Weisstein (1967) and C. Petersen (tr. 1972).

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Frisch, Max (Rudolf)

(born May 15, 1911, Zürich, Switz.—died April 4, 1991, Zürich) Swiss dramatist and novelist. Originally a journalist, he later worked as an architect, a career he abandoned for writing in 1955. He is noted for his Expressionist depictions of the moral dilemmas of 20th-century life. His early drama Santa Cruz (1947) established the central theme of his subsequent works: the predicament of the complicated, skeptical individual in modern society. Other plays include The Chinese Wall (1947), The Fire Raisers (1958), and Andorra (1961). Among his novels are I'm Not Stiller (1954), Homo Faber (1957), A Wilderness of Mirrors (1964), and Man in the Holocene (1979).