Max Frisch

Max Frisch 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).

Frisch, Max Rudolf (1911–91), Swiss playwright, a disciple of Brecht, whose influence was apparent in Nun singen sie wieder (Now They Sing Again, 1945) and Die chinesische Mauer (The Great Wall of China, 1946), both episodically constructed, the first dealing with the sorrows and squalor of war, the second with the atom bomb. In complete contrast were the more romantic plays such as Santa Cruz (1946), a blend of dream and reality, and Don Juan; oder, Die Liebe zur Geometrie (1953), in which women are attracted to Don Juan because he has no time for them, his only interest being in geometry. His short play Biedermann und die Brandstifter (1958) ran at the Royal Court as The Fire Raisers (1961) and was seen in New York as The Firebugs (1963). It offers the paradox of a man worried about arson who nevertheless incites it. Frisch's next play Andorra (1961) is the story of a non-Jewish illegitimate child brought up as a Jew who is murdered by an anti-Semitic invader. It was produced in New York in 1963 and twice performed in London in 1964, in German by the Schillertheater company during the World Theatre Season and by the National Theatre company. Biografie (1967), seen in New York as Biography: A Game (1979), is a play on one of Frisch's recurrent themes, the problem of identity. The world première of his Triptychon was directed by Axer in 1980.

Frisch, Max (1911–91) Swiss novelist and dramatist. His early plays, greatly influenced by Brecht, are experimental in form and often satirical. They include: The Chinese Wall (1946), The Fire Raisers (1953), and Andorra (1961). His later plays, including Biography (1968) and Triptych (1979), and the novels Stiller (1954) and A Wilderness of Mirrors (1964), are concerned with man's quest for identity.