Friedrich Dürrenmatt Books

Depicts an American boy's childhood in Mexico, ensconced in a world comprised of communist European exiles, local union activists, street children and avant-garde artists like Frida Kahlo

In the town of Slurry, New York, post-war recession has bitten. Claire Zachanassian, improbably beautiful and impenetrably terrifying, returns to her hometown as the world's richest woman. The locals hope her arrival signals a change in their fortunes, but they soon realise that prosperity will only come at a terrible price...

A young child has been found brutally murdered. A mother's world has been shattered forever. And a detective has made a pledge to find the killer. Now, one man's crime is about to become another man's obsession. But the detective is a man of his word. No one can stop him. And no one can save him.

Friedrich Dürrenmatt stands as a pivotal literary figure of the twentieth century, comparable to Samuel Beckett, Albert Camus, and others. His prolific output includes letters, poems, novels, and essays that reflect his critical insight and stylistic versatility. The writings in this collection showcase Dürrenmatt's playful yet polemical tone, blending the poetic with the provocative, and the comical with the serious. Critics have noted his abrupt shifts between genres—stage to prose, comedy to tragedy—highlighting his diverse interests in the arts and their interconnections. One section focuses on theater, revealing his unique dramaturgical theories through examples from Attic comedy to Schiller and Brecht. Another section features philosophical essays that explore ethical and political dilemmas alongside skeptical inquiries into metaphysics. Autobiographical pieces, such as "Vallon de l'Ermitage," provide an intimate glimpse into his life, detailing the places he visited and the people he encountered. Rich with melancholy, tenderness, and a distinctive sense of the grotesque, these essays offer a profound insight into Dürrenmatt's remarkable prowess as a nonfiction writer.

The world's greatest physicist, Johann Wilhelm Mobius, is in a madhouse, haunted by recurring visions of King Solomon. He is kept company by two other equally deluded scientists: one who thinks he is Einstein, another who believes he is Newton. It soon becomes evident, however, that these three are not as harmlessly lunatic as they appear. Are they, in fact, really mad? Or are they playing some murderous game, with the world as the stake? For Mobius has uncovered the mystery of the universe--and therefore the key to its destruction--and Einstein and Newton are vying for this secret that would enable them to rule the earth.

This volume offers bracing new translations of two precursors to the modern detective novel by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, whose genre-bending mysteries recall the work of Alain Robbe-Grillet and anticipate the postmodern fictions of Paul Auster and other contemporary neo-noir novelists. Both mysteries follow Inspector Barlach as he moves through worlds in which the distinction between crime and justice seems to have vanished. In The Judge and His Hangman , Barlach forgoes the arrest of a murderer in order to manipulate him into killing another, more elusive criminal. And in Suspicion , Barlach pursues a former Nazi doctor by checking into his clinic with the hope of forcing him to reveal himself. The result is two thrillers that bring existential philosophy and the detective genre into dazzling convergence. 

The wife of a psychiatrist has been raped and killed near a desert ruin in North Africa. Her husband hires a woman named F to reconstruct the unsolved crime in a documentary film. F is soon thrust into a paranoid world of international espionage where everyone is watched - including the watchers.

In The Visit (original title Der Besuch der alten Dame), Claire Zachanassian, now a multimillion heiress and an older woman, returns to the impoverished town of her youth with a dreadful bargain: in exchange for returning the town to prosperity through her vast wealth, she wants the townspeople to kill the man who jilted her.