Max Frisch on Display!

Max Frisch is a Swiss writer and playwright about whom I wrote my undergraduate honors thesis at Harvard College in 1963. These volumes were in the window of a used bookstore around the corner from us in Northampton.

Max Frisch (1911 - 1991) shared the literary limelight in Switzerland (and even Germany) for decades with his countryman Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921 - 1990). Their deaths within four months of each other was a shock to me, and I'm sure to all of Switzerland.

Both were prolific. Dürrenmatt was probably better known in the English speaking world, above all for his play The Visit [of the Old Lady]. Frisch also wrote plays, but also novels. a brief diary (the "Sketchbook" in the window), aphorisms (Stichworte), and more. My thesis was on the theme of silence in his works--it pervaded them and I found it fascinating.

It's disconcerting for me (despite my French ties) that Frisch's books are juxtaposed with works by Gertrude Stein--I see no connection with Frisch.